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ADDRESSES 



BY 



/ 

HENRY DRUMMOND 




Chicago : 

THE BIBLE INSTITUTE COLPORTAGE ASSOCIATION 

250 La Salle Avenue 



18458 



Copyrighted 189 1 and 1898 
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INTRODUCTORY. 



I was staying with a party of friends in a country house during 
my visit to England in 1884. On Sunday evening as we sataround 
the fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of 
Scripture. Being tired after the services of the day, I told them 
to ask Henry Drummond, who was one of the party. After some 
urging he drew a small Testament from his hip pocket, opened it 
at the 13th chapter of I Corinthians, and began to speak on the 
subject of Love. 

It seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, 
and I determined not to rest until I brought Henry Drummond to 
Northfield to deliver that address. Since then I have requested 
the principals of my schools to have it read before the students 
every year. The one great need in our Christian life is love, more 
love to God and to each other. Would that we could all move 
into that Love chapter, and live there. 

This volume contains, in addition to the address on Love, some 
other addresses which I trust will bring help and blessing to 
many. 




CONTENTS. 



Love, the Greatest Thing in the World . 7 

Lessons from the Angelus 35 

Pax Vobiscum 44 

First! An Address to Boys 70 

The Changed Life, the Greatest Need of 

the World 82 

Dealing with Doubt 113 



LOVE: 

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

Every one has asked himself the great question of 
antiquity as of the modern world : What is the sum- 
mum bonum — the supreme good ? You have life before 
you. Once only«you can live it. What is the noblest 
object of desire, the supreme gift to covet ? 

We have been accustomed to be told that the great- 
est thing in the religious world is Faith. That great 
word has been the key-note for centuries of the popu- 
lar religion; and we have easily learned to look upon 
it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are 
wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss the 
mark. In the 13th chapter of I Corinthians, Paul takes 
us to 

CHRISTIANITY AT ITS SOURCE; 

and there we see, " The greatest of these is love." 

It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith 
just a moment before. He says, "If 1 have all faith, 
so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I 
am nothing." So far from forgetting, he deliberately 
contrasts them, " Now abideth Faith, Hope, Love," 
and without a moment's hesitation the decision falls. 
" The greatest of these is Love." 

And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend 
to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul's 

7 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

strong point. The observing student can detect a 
beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through 
his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote, 
" The greatest of these is love," when we meet it first, 
is stained with blood. 

Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in 
singling out love as the summwn bonum. The master- 
pieces of Christianity are agreed about it. Peter says, 
"Above all things have fervent love among your- 
selves." Above all things. And John goes farther, " God 
is love." 

You remember the profound remark which Paul makes 
elsewhere, " Love is the fulfilling of the law." Did you 
ever think what he meant by that ? In those days men 
were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the 
Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other 
commandments which they had manufactured out of 
them. Christ came and said, *' I will show you a more 
simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these 
hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about 
them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the 
whole law." 

You can readily see for yourselves how that must be 
so. Take any of the commandments. " Thou shalt 
have no other gods before Me." If a man love God, 
you will not require to tell him that. Love is the ful- 
filling of that law. " Take not His name in vain." 
Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if he 
loved him ? " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
holy." Would he not be too glad to have one day in 
seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his 
affection ? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding 
God. 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 9 

And so, if he loved man, you would never think of 
telling him to honor his father and mother. He could 
not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell 
him not to kill. You could only insult him if you sug- 
gested that he should not steal — how could he steal 
from those he loved ? It would be superfluous to beg 
him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If 
he loved him it would be the last thing he would do. 
And you would never dream of urging him not to covet 
what his neighbors had. He would rather they pos- 
sessed it than himself. In this way " Love is the ful- 
filling of the law." It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, 
the new commandment for keeping all the old com- 
mandments, Christ's one 

SECRET OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

Now Paul has learned that; and in this noble eulogy 
he has given us the most wonderful and original ac- 
count extant of the summiim bonwn. We may divide it 
into three parts. In the beginning of the short chapter 
we have Love contrasted; in the heart of it, we have 
Love analyzed; toward the end, we have Love defended 
as the supreme gift. 

I. THE CONTRAST. 

Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things 
that men in those days thought much of. I shall not 
attempt to go over these things in detail. Their infer- 
iority is already obvious. 

He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble 
gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills 
of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy 
deeds! Paul says, "If I speak with the tongues of men 



10 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding 
brass, or a tinkling cymbal." We all know why. We 
have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, 
the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of 
eloquence behind which lies no Love. 

He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with 
mysteries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it 
with charity. Why is Love greater than faith ? Because 
the end is greater than the means. And why is it 
greater than charity? Because the whole is greater 
than the part. 

Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater 
than the means. What is the use of having faith? It 
is to connect the soul with God. And what is the ob- 
jectof connecting man with God? That he may become 
like God. But God is Love. Hence Faith, the means, 
is in order to Love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously 
is greater than faith. "If I have all faith, so as to re- 
move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." 

It is greater than charity, again, because the whole is 
greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, 
one of the innumerable avenues of Love, and there may 
even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without 
Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a 
beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing 
than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the with- 
holding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic 
feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the cop- 
per's cost. It is too cheap — too cheap for us, and often 
too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we 
would either do more for him, or less. Hence, "If I 
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love 
it profiteth me nothing." 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 11 

Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom: 
"If I give my body to be burned, but have not love, 
it profiteth me nothing." Missionaries can take noth- 
ing greater to the heathen world than the impress and 
reflection of the Love of God upon their own charac- 
ter. That is the universal language. It will take them 
years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. 
From the day they land, that language of Love, under- 
stood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious elo- 
quence. 

It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his 
words. His character is his message. In the heart of 
Africa, among the great Lakes, I have come across 
black men and women who remembered the only white 
man they ever saw before — David Livingstone; and as 
you cross his footsteps in that dark continent, 

men's faces light up 
as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there 
years ago. They could not understand him; but they 
felt the love that beat in his heart. They knew that it 
was love, although he spoke no word. 

Take into your sphere of labor, where you also mean 
to lay down your life, that simple charm, and your life- 
work must succeed. You can take nothing greater, 
you need take nothing less. You may take every ac- 
complishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; 
but if you give your body to be burned, and have not 
Love, it will profit you and the cause of Christ nothi?ig. 

II. THE ANALYSIS. 

After contrasting Love with these things, Paul, in 
three verses, very Fhort, gives us an amazing analysis 
of what this supreme thing is. 



12 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he 
tells us. It is like light. As you have seen a man of 
science take a beam ©flight and pass it through a crys- 
tal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other 
side of the prism broken up into its component colors 
— red, and blue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, 
and alLthe colors of the rainbow — so Paul passes this 
thing, Love, through the magnificent prism of his 
inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side 
broken up into its elements. 

In these few words we have what one might call 

THE SPECTRUM OF LOVE, 

the analysis of Love . Will you observe what its elements 
are? Will you notice that they have common names; 
that they are virtues which we hear about everyday; 
that they are things which can be practised by every 
man in every place in life; and how, by a multitude of 
small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, 
the siimmum bonwn, is made up? 

The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients: 



Patience . 
Kindness . 
Generosity . 
Humility . 
Courtesy . 
Unselfishness 
Good temper 
Guilelessness . 
Sincerity . 



" Love suffereth long." 
" And is kind." 
"Love envieth not." 

" Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." 
"Doth not behave itself unseemly." 
" Seeketh not its own." 
"Is not provoked." 
"Taketh not account of evil." 
"Rejoiceth not in unr ighteousness, but re- 
joiceth with the truth." 



Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; 
unselfishness; good temper; guilelessness; sincerity — 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 13 

these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the per- 
fect man. 

You will observe that all are in relation to men, in 
relation to life, in relation to the known to-day and the 
near to-morrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We 
hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love 
to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; 
Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not 
a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the sec- 
ular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this 
temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is not a 
thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to the 
multitudinous words and acts which make up the sum 
of every common day. 

Patience. This is the normal attitude of love; Love 
passive, Love waiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; 
ready to do its work when the summons comes, but 
meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit. Love suffers long; beareth all things; believeth 
all things; hopeth all things. For Love understands, 
and therefore waits. 

Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how 
much of Christ's life was spent in doing kind things — 
in merely doing kind things? Run over it with that in 
view, and you will find that He spent a great propor- 
tion of His time simply in making people happy, in 

DOING GOOD TURNS 

to people. There is only one thing greater than hap- 
piness in the world, and that is holiness; and it is not 
in our keeping; but what God has put in our power is 
the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to 
be secured by our being kind to them. 



14 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

" The greatest thing," says some one, "a man can do 
for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His 
other children." I wonder why it is that we are not 
all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it! 
How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! 
How infallibly it is remembered! How superabund- 
antly it pays itself back — for there is no debtor in the 
world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as Love. 
" Love never faileth." Love is success, Love is happi- 
ness, Love is life. " Love," I say with Browning, "is 
energy of life." 

"For life, with all it yields of joy or woe 
And hope and fear, 

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, — 
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is." 

Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love 
dwelleth in God. God is Love. Therefore love. With- 
out distinction, without calculation, without procrasti- 
nation, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very 
easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; 
most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and 
for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a 
difference between trying to please and givi?ig pleasure. 
Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure; for 
that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly 
loving spirit. " I shall pass through this world but 
once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any 
kindness that I can show to any human being, let me 
doit now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall 
not pass this way again." 

Generosity. " Love envieth not." This is love in 
competition with others. Whenever you attempt a 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 15 

good work you will find other men doing the same 
kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy 
them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who 
are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetous- 
ness and detraction. How little Christian work even is 
a protection against un-Christian feeling! That most 
despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a 
Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold 
of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of 
magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the Chris- 
tian envy — the large, rich, generous soul which "envieth 
not." 

And then, after having learned all that, you have to 
learn this further thing, Humility — to put a seal upon 
your lips and forget what you have done. After you 
have been kind, after Love has stolen forth into the 
world and done its beautiful work, go back into the 
shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even 
from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. "Love 
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Humility — love 
hiding. 

The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to 
find in this summum bonum: Courtesy. This is Love in 
society, Love in relation to etiquette= " Love does 
not behave itself unseemly." 

Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Cour- 
tesy is said to be love in little things. And the one 
secret of politeness is to love. 

Love cannot behave itself unseemly. You can put 
the most untutored persons into the highest society, 
and if they have a reservoir of Love in their heart they 
will not behave themselves unseemly. They simply 
cannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there 



16 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman- 
poet. It was because he loved everything — the mouse, 
and the daisy, and all the things, great and small, that 
God had made. So with this simple passport he could 
mingle with any society, and enter courts and palaces 
from his little cottage on the banks of the Ayr. 

You know the meaning of the word "gentleman." 
It means a gentle man — a man who does things gently, 
with love. That is the whole art and mystery of it. 
The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an 
ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, 
the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do 
anything else. ''Love doth not behave itself unseemly." 

Unselfishness. "Love seeketh not her own." Observe: 
Seeketh not even that which is her own. In Britain 
the Englishman is devoted, and rightly, to his rights. 
But there come times when a man may exercise even 

THE HIGHER RIGHT 

of giving up his rights. 

Yet Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. 
Love strikes much deeper. It would have us not seek 
them at all, ignore them, eliminate the personal ele- 
ment altogether from our calculations. 

It is not hard to give up our rights. They are often 
eternal. The difficult thing is to give up ourselves. 
The more difficult thing still is not to seek things for 
ourselves at all. After we have sought them, bought 
them, won them, deserved them, we have taken the 
cream off them for ourselves already. Little cross then 
to give them up. But not to seek them, to look every 
man not on his own things, but on the things of others 
— that is the difficulty. "Seekest thou great things for 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 17 

thyself?" said the prophet; "seek them not." Why? 
Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot 
be great. The only greatness is unselfish love. Even 
self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. 
Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify the 
waste. 

It is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own 
at all than, having sought it, to give it up. I must 
take that back. It is only true of a partly selfish heart. 
Nothing is a hardship to Love, and nothing is hard. I 
believe that Christ's "yoke" is easy. Christ's yoke is 
just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an 
easier way than any other. I believe it is a happier 
way than any other. The most obvious lesson in 
Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in hav- 
ing and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, 
there is no happi?iess in having or in getting, but only in 
giving. Half the world is on the wrong scent in pur- 
suit of happiness. They think it consists in having and 
getting, and in being served by others. It consists in 
giving, and in serving others. "He that would be great 
among you," said Christ, "let him serve. ' He that 
would be happy, let him remember that there is but 
one way — "it is more blessed, it is more happy, to give 
than to receive." 

The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: Good 
temper. "Love is not provoked." 

Nothing could be more striking than to find this 
here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a 
very harm less weakness. We speak of it as a mere 
infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of tem- 
perament, not a thing to take into very serious ac- 
count in estimating a man's character. And yet here, 



18 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

right in the heart of this analysis of love, it. finds a 
place; and the Bible again and again returns to con- 
demn it as one of the most destructive elements in 
human nature. 

The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of 
the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise 
noble character. You know men who are all but per- 
fect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for 
an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" disposi- 
tion. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral 
character is one of the strangest and saddest problems 
of ethics. The truth is, there are two great classes of 
sins — sins of the Body and sins of the Dispositio?i The 
Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first, the 
Elder Brother of the second. Now, society has no 
doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its 
brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. 
But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one 
another's sins, and coarser and finer are but human 
words; but faults in the higher nature may be less 
venal than those in the lower, and to the eye of Him 
who is Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundred 
times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, 
not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more 
to un- Christianize society than evil temper. For em- 
bittering life, for breaking up communities, for de- 
stroying the most sacred relationship's, for devastating 
homes, for withering up men and women, for taking 
the bloom of childhood, in short, 

FOR SHEER GRATUITOUS MISERY-PRODUCING POWER 

this influence stands alone. 

Look at the Elder Brother — moral, hard-working, 






LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 19 

patient, dutiful — let him get all credit for his virtues — 
look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own 
father's door. "He was angry," we read, "and would 
not go in." Look at the effect upon the father, upon 
the servants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge 
of the effect upon the Prodigal — and how many prodi- 
gals are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the un- 
lovely character of those who profess to be inside. 
Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud 
itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. 
What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, 
cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, 
sullenness — these are the ingredients of this dark and 
loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are 
the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins 
of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for oth- 
ers to live with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ 
indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, 
"I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into 
the Kingdom of Heaven before you"? There is really 
no place in heaven for a v disposition like this. A man 
with such a mood could only make heaven miserable 
for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a 
man be 

BORN AGAIN, 

he cannot, simply cannot, enter the kingdom of heaven. 
You will see then why Temper is significant. It is 
not in what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why 
I speak of it with such unusual plainness. It is atestfor 
love, a symptom, a revelation of an unloving nature at 
bottom It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks 
unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble 



20 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness 
underneath; a sample of the most hidden products of 
the soul dropped involuntarily when off one's guard; 
in a word, the lightning form of a hundred hideous 
and un-Christian sins. A want of patience, a want of 
kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a 
want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbol- 
ized in one flash of Temper. 

Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. 
We must go to the source, and change the inmost 
nature, and the angry humors will die away of them- 
selves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid 
fluids out, but by putting something in — a great Love, 
anew Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of 
Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, trans- 
forms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, 
work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and 
rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not 
change men. Time does not change men. 

CHRIST DOES. 

Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also 
in Christ Jesus." 

Some of us have not much time to lose. Remem- 
ber, once more, that this is a matter of life or death. 
I cannot help speaking urgently, for myself, for your- 
selves. "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, 
which believe in me, it were better for him that a mill- 
stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were 
drowned in the depth of the sea." That is to say, it 
is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is 
better not to live than not to love. It is better not to live 
than not to love 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 21 

Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed almost 
without a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspici- 
ous people. The possession of it is 

THE GREAT SECRET OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 

You will find, if you think for a moment, that the 
people who influence you are people who believe in 
you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; 
but in that atmosphere they expand, and find encour- 
agement and educative fellowship. 

It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this 
hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few 
rare souls who think no evil. This is the great un- 
worldliness. Love "thinketh no evil," imputes no mo- 
tive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on 
every action. What a delightful state of m'nd to live 
in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet 
with it for a day! To be trusted is to be saved. And 
if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon 
see that success is in proportion to their belief of our 
belief in them. The respect of another is the first res- 
toration of the self-respect a man has lost; our ideal of 
what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of 
what he may become. 

"Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth 
with the truth." I have called this Sincerity from the 
words rendered in the Authorized Version by "rejoiceth 
in the truth." And, certainly, were this the real trans- 
lation, nothing could be more just; for he who loves 
will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in 
the Truth — rejoice not in what he has been taught to 
believe; not in this church's doctrine or in that; not in 
this ism or in that ism; but "in the Truth!' He will ac- 



22 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

cept only what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he 
will search for Truth with a humble and unbiased 
mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. 
But the more literal translation of the Revised Version 
calls for just such a sacrifice for truth's sake here. For 
what Paul really meant is, as we there read, "Rejoiceth 
not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth," a 
quality which probably no one English word — and cer- 
tainly not Sincerity — adequately defines. It includes, 
perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses 
to make capital out of others' faults; the charity which 
delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but 
"covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose which 
endeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find 
them better than suspicion feared or calumny de- 
nounced. 

So much for the analysis of Love. Now the business 
of our lives is to have these things fitted into our char- 
acters. That is the supreme work to which we need to 
address ourselves in this world, to learn Love. Is life 
not full of opportunities for learning Love? Every 
man and woman every day has a thousand of them. 
The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. 
Life is not a holiday, but an education. And 

THE ONE ETERNAL LESSON 

for us all i s how better we can love. 

What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. 
What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a 
good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good 
linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What 
makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. 
There is nothing capricious about religion. We 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 2S 

do not get the soul in different ways, under different 
laws, from those in which we get the body and the 
mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops 
no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his 
soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of 
character, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of spirit- 
ual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emo- 
tion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression 
of the whole round Christian character — the Christlike 
nature in its fullest development. And the constitu- 
ents of this great character are only to be built up by 

CEASELESS PRACTICE. 

What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? 
Practising. Though perfect, we read that He learned 
obedience, and grew in wisdom and in favor with God. 
Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. ( i)o not \ 
complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environ- I 
ment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and 
sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above 
all, do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed be- 
cause it seems to thicken round you more and more, 
and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. 
That is your practice. That is the practice which God 
appoints you; and it is having its work in making you 
patient, and humble, and generous, and unselfish, and 
kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is 
moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is 
growing more beautiful, though you see it not; and : 
every touch of temptation may add to its perfection, 
Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate 
yourself. Be among men and among things, and 
among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles, You 



24 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE V/ORLD. 

remember Goethe's words: "Talent develops itself in 
solitude; character in the stream of life." Talent de- 
velops itself in solitude — the talent of prayer, of faith, 
of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows 
in the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where 
men are to learn love. 

How? Now, how? To make it easier, I have named 
a few of the elements of love. But these are only ele- 
ments. Love itself can never be defined. Light is a 
something more than the sum of its ingredients — a 
glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is some- 
thing more than all its elements — a palpitating, quiv- 
ering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the 
colors, men can make whiteness, they cannot make 
light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make 
virtue, they cannot make love. How then are we to 
have this transcendent living whole conveyed into our 
souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try to 
copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. 
We watch. We pray. But these things alone will not 
bring love into our na ture. Love is an effect. And 
only as we fulfill the right condition can we have the 
effect produced. Shall I tell you what the cause is? 

If you turn to the Revised Version of the First 
Epistle of John you find these words: "We love be- 
cause He first loved us." ''We love," not "We love 
Him." That is the way the old version has it, and it is 
quite wrong. "We love — because He first loved us." 
Look at that word "because." It is the cause of which 
I have spoken. "Because He first loved us," the effect 
follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. 
We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we 
love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Con- 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 25 

template the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand 
before that mirror, reflect Christ's character, and you 
will be changed into the same image from tenderness 
to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot 
love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, 
and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. 
And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. 
Look at 

THE GREAT SACRIFICE 

as He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon 
the Cross of Calvary; and you must love Him. And 
loving Him, you most become like Him. Love begets 
love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron 
in the presence of an electrified body, and that piece of 
iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into 
a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a perma- 
nent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by/ 
side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by 
side with Him who loved us, and 

GAVE HIMSELF FOR US, 

and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a per- 
manently attractive force; and like Him you will draw 
all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn unto all 
men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man 
who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced 
in him. 

Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by 
chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us 
by natural law, or by supernatural law, for all law is 
Divine. 

Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and 
when he entered the room he just put his hand on the 



26 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

sufferer's head, and said, "My boy, God loves you," and 
went away. The boy started from his bed, and called 
out to the people in the house, 

"God loves me! God loves me!" 

One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God 
loved him overpowered him, melted him down, and be- 
gan the creating of a new heart in him. And that is 
how the love of God melts down the unlovely heart in 
man, and begets in him the new creature, who is pa- 
tient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there 
is no other way to get it. There is no mystery about 
it. We love others, we love everybody, we love our 
enemies, because He first loved us. 

III. THE DEFENCE. 

Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about 
Paul's reason for singling out love as the supreme pos 
session. 

It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it 
is this: itlasts. "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." 
Then he begins again one of his marvelous lists of the 
great things of the day, and exposes them one by one. 
He runs over the things that men thought were going 
to last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, 
passing away. 

"Whether there be prophecies, they shall be done 
away." It was the mother's ambition for her boy in 
those days that he should become a prophet. For hun- 
dreds of years God had never spoken by means of any 
prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than 
the king. Men waited wistfully for another messenger 
to come, and hung upon his lips when he appeared, as 
upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whether 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 31 

man's nature. They offer peace, not life; faith, not 
Love; justification, not regeneration. And men slip 
back again from such religion because it has never 
really held them. Their nature was not all in it. It 
offered no deeper and gladder life-current than the life 
that was lived before. Surely it stands to reason that 
only a fuller love can compete with the love of the 
world. 

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to 
love forever is to live forever. Hence, eternal life is 
inextricably bound up with love. We want to live for- 
ever for the same reason that we want to live to-mor- 
row. Why do we want to live to-morrow? Is it be- 
cause there is some one who loves you, and whom you 
want to see to-morrow, and be with, and love back? 
There is no other reason why we should live on than 
that we love and are beloved. It is when a man has 
no one to love him that he commits suicide. So long 
as he has friends, those who love him and whom he 
loves, he will live, because to live is to love. Be it but 
the love of a dog, it will keep him in life; but let that 
go, he has no contact with life, no reason to live. He 
dies by his own hand. 

Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. 
This is Christ's own definition. Ponder it. "This is 
life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Love 
must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last 
analysis, then, love is life. Love never faileth, and life 
never faileth, so long as there is love. That is the 
philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reason why 
in the nature of things Love should be the supreme 
thing — because it is going to last; because in the nature 



32 LOVE- THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

of things it is an Eternal Life. It is a thing that we 
are living now, not that we get when we die; that we 
shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless 
we are living now. 

NO WORSE FATE 

can befall a man in this world than to live and grow 
old alone, unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live 
in an unregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; 
and to be saved is to love; and he that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth already in God. For God is Love. 

Now I have all but finished. How many of you will 
join me in reading this chapter once a week for the 
next three months? A man did that once and it 
changed his whol e life. Will you do it? It is for the 
greatest thing in the world. You might begin by read- 
ing it every day, es pecially the verses which describe 
the perfect character. "Love suffereth long, and is 
kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself." Get 
these ingredients into your life. Then everything that 
you do is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giv- 
ing time to. No man can become a saint in his sleep; 
and to fulfill the condition required demands a certain 
amount of prayer and meditation and time, just as im- 
provement in any direction, bodily or mental, requires 
preparation and care. Address yourselves to that one 
thing; at any cost have this transcendent character ex- 
changed for yours. 

You will find as you look back upon your life that 
the moments that stand out, the moments when you 
have really lived, are the moments when you have done 
things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, 
above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, 



LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 83 

there leap forward those supreme hours when you have 
been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round 
about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which 
you feel have entered into your eternal life. I have 
seen almost all the beautiful things God has made; I 
have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has 
planned for man; and yet as I look back I see stand- 
ing out above all the life that has gone four or five short 
experiences, when the love of God reflected itself in 
some poor imitation, some small act of love of mine, 
and these seem to be the things which alone of all one's 
life abide. Everything else in all our lives is transitory. 
Every other good is visionary. But the acts of love 
which no man knows about, or can ever know about 
— they never fail. 

In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day 
is depicted for us in the imagery of One seated upon a 
throne and dividing the sheep from the goats, the test 
of a man then is not, "How have I believed?" but 
"How have I loved?" The test of religion, the final 
test of religion, is not religiousness, but Love. I say 
the final test of religion at that great Day is not relig- 
iousness, but Love; not what I have done, not what I 
have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I 
have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of 
commission in that awful indictment are not even re- 
ferred to. By what we have not done, by sins of omis- 
sion, we are judged. It could not be otherwise. For 
the withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of 
Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us 
He lived in vain. It means that He suggested noth- 
ing in all our thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all 
our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him 



"^ 



34 LOVE: THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

to be seized with the spell of His compassion for the 
world. It means that— 

"I lived for myself, I thought for myself, 
For myself, and none beside — 
Just as if Jesus had never lived, 
As if He had never died." 

Thank God the Christianity of today is coming 
nearer the world's need. Live to help that on. Thank 
God men know better, by a hair's breadth, what. religion 
is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. Who 
is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked; 
visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where? — 
"Whoso shall receive a little child in My name re- 
ceiveth Me.' And who are Christ's? "Every one that 
loveth is born of God." 



LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 

God often speaks to men's souls through music; He 
also speaks to us through art. Millet's famous painting 
entitled "The Angelus" is an illuminated text, upon 
which I am going to say a few words to you to-night. 

There are three things in this picture — a potato field, 
a country lad and a country girl standing in the middle 
of it, and on the far horizon the spire of a village 
church. That is all there is to it — no great scenery and 
no picturesque people. In Roman Catholic countries 
at the evening hour the church bell rings out to remind 
the people to pray. Some go into the church, while 
those that are in the fields bow their heads for a few 
moments in silent prayer. 

That picture contains the three great elements which 
go to make up a perfectly rounded Christian life. It 
is not enough to have the "root of the matter" in us, 
but that we must be whole and entire, lacking nothing. 
The Angelus may bring to us suggestions as to what 
constitutes a complete life. 

I. 

The first element in a symmetrical life is work. 

Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. 
Of course the meaning of it is that our work should be 
just as religious as our worship, and unless we can work 
for the glory of God. three-fourths of life remains un- 
sanctified. 

35 



8(5 LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 

The proof that work is religious is that most ol 
Christ's life was spent in work. During a large part of 
the first thirty years of His life He worked with the 
hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokes and 
household furniture. Christ's public ministry occu- 
pied only about two and a half years of His earthly 
life; the great bulk of His time was simply spent in 
doing common everyday tasks, and ever since then 
work has had a new meaning. 

When Christ came into the world He was revealed 
to three deputations who went to meet and worship 
Him. First came the shepherds, or working class; 
second, the wise men, or student class; and third, the 
two old people in the temple, Simeon and Anna; that 
is to say, Christ is revealed to men at their work, He is 
revealed to men at their books, and He is revealed to 
men at their worship. It was the old people who found 
Christ at their worship, and as we grow older we will 
spend more time exclusively in worship than we are 
able to do now. In the mean time we must combine 
our worship with our work, and we may expect to find 
Christ at our books and in our common task. 

Why should God have provided that so many hours 
of every day should be occupied with work? It is be- 
cause 

WORK MAKES MEN. 

A university is not merely a place for making schol- 
ars, it is a place for making Christians. A farm is not 
a place for growing corn, it is a place for growing char- 
acter, and a man has no character except that which is 
developed by his life and thought. God's Spirit does 
the building through the acts which a man performs 
from day to day. A student who cons out every word 



LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 87 

in his Latin and Greek instead of consulting a transla- 
tion finds that honesty is translated into his character. 
If he works out his mathematical problems thoroughly, 
he not only becomes a mathematician, but becomes a 
thorough man. It is by constant and conscientious 
attention to daily duties that thoroughness and con- 
scientiousness and honorableness are imbedded in our 
beings. Character is 

THE MUSIC OF THE SOUL, 

and is developed by exercise. Active use of the power 
entrusted to us is one of the chief means which God 
employs for producing the Christian graces. Hence 
the religion of a student demands that he be true to his 
work, and that he let his Christianity be shown to his 
fellow students and to his professors by the integrity 
and the conscientiousness of his academic life. A man 
who is not faithful in that which is least will not be 
faithful in that which is great. I have known men who 
struggled unsuccessfully for years to pass their exami- 
nations who, when they became Christians, found a new 
motive for work and thus were able to succeed where 
previously they had failed. • A man's Christianity 
comes out as much in his work as in his worship. 

Our work is not only to be done thoroughly, but it is 
to be done honestly. A man is not only to be honor- 
able in his academic relations, but he must be honest 
with himself and in his attitude toward the truth. 
Students are not entitled to dodge difficulties, they 
must go down to the foundation principles. Perhaps 
the truths which are dear to us go down deeper even 
than we think, and we will get more out of them if we 
dig down for the nuggets than we will if we only pick 



38 LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 

up those that are on the surface. Other theories may 
perhaps be found to have false bases; if so, we ought 
to know it. It is well to take our soundings in every 
direction to see if there is deep water; if there are 
shoals we ought to find out where they are. There- 
fore, when we come to difficulties, let us not jump 
lightly over them, but let us be honest as seekers after- 
truth. 

It may not be necessary for people in general to sift 
the doctrines of Christianity for themselves, but a 
student is a man whose business it is to think, to exer- 
cise the intellect which God has given him in finding 
out the truth. Fai'ch is never opposed to reason, 
though it is sometimes supposed by Bible teachers that 
it is; but you will find it is not. Faith is opposed to 
sight, but not to reason, though it is not limited to 
reason. In employing his intellect in the search for 
truth a student is drawing nearer to the Christ who 
said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." We talk 
a great deal about Christ as the way and Christ as the 
life, but there is a side of Christ especially for the 
student: "I am the truth," and every student ought to 
be a truth-lover and a truth-seeker for Christ's sake. 

II. 

Another element in 1 ife, which of course is first in 
importance, is God. 

The Angelus is perhaps the most religious picture 
painted this century. You cannot look at it and see 
that young man standing in the field with his hat off, 
and the girl opposite him with her hands clasped and 
her head bowed on her breast, without feeling a sense 
of God. 



LESSONS FROM THE ANGEL US. 39 

[ Do we carry about with us the thought of God wher- 
ever we go? If not, we have missed the greatest part 
of life. /Do we have a conviction of God's abiding 
presence wherever we are? There is nothing more 
needed in this generation than a larger and more Scrip- 
tural idea of God. A great American writer has told 
us that when he was a boy the conception of God 
which he got from books and sermons was that of a 
wise and very strict lawyer. I remember well the awful 
conception of God which I had when a boy. I was 
given an illustrated edition of Watts' hymns, in which 
God was represented as a great piercing eye in the 
midst of a great black thunder cloud. The idea which 
that picture gave to my young imagination was that of 
God as a great detective, playing the spy upon my 
actions, as the hymn says: 

"Writing now the story of what little children do." 
That was a very mistaken and harmful idea which it 
has taken me years to obliterate. We think of God as 
"up there," or as one who made the world six thousand 
yea rs ago and then retired. We must learn that He is 
not confined either to time or space. God is not to be 
thought of as merely back there in time, or up there 
in space. If not, where is He? "The word is nigh 
thee, even in thy mouth." The Kingdom of God is 
within you, and God Himself is among men. When 
are we to exchange the terrible, far-away, absentee 
God of our childhood for the everywhere present God 
of the Bible? Too many of the old Christian writers 
seem to have conceived of God as not much more than 
the greatest man — a kind of divine emperor. He is 
infinitely more; He is a spirit, as Jesus said to the 
woman at the well, and in Him we live and move and 



40 LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 

have our being. Let us think of God as Immanuel — 
God with us — an ever-present, omnipresent, eternal 
One. Long, long ago, God made matter, then He 
made the flowers and trees and animals, then He made 
man. Did He stop? Is God dead? If He lives and 
acts what is He doing? He is 

MAKING MEN BETTER. 

He it is that "worketh in you." The buds of our nature 
are not all out yet; the sap to make them comes from 
the God who made us, from the indwelling Christ. 
Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and we 
must bear this in mind, because the sense of God is 
kept up, not by logic, but by experience. 

Until she was seven years of age the life of Helen 
Keller, the Boston girl who was deaf and dumb and 
blind, was an absolute blank; nothing could go into 
that mind because the ears and eyes were closed to the 
outer world. Then by that great process which has 
been discovered, by which the blind see, and the deaf 
hear, and the mute speak, that girl's soul became 
opened, and they began to put in little bits of knowl- 
edge, and bit by bit they began to educate her. They 
reserved her religious instruction for Phillips Brooks. 
After some years, when she was twelve years old, they 
took her to him and he began to talk to her through 
the young lady who had been the means of opening 
her senses, and who could communicate with her by the 
exceedingly delicate process of touch. He began to 
tell her about God and what He had done, and how 
He loved men, and what He is to us. The child 
listened very intelligently, and finally said: 

"Mr. Brooks, I knew all that before, but I didn't 
know His name." 



LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 41 

How often we have felt something within us im- 
pelling us to do something which we would not have 
conceived of by ourselves, or enabling us to do some- 
thing which we could not have done alone. "It is 
God which worketh in you." This great simple fact 

EXPLAINS MANY OF THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE, 

and takes away the fear which we would otherwise 
have in meeting the difficulties which lie before us. 

Two Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met 
on Sunday night to sing hymns in the cabin. As they 
sang the hymn, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," one of the 
Americans heard an exceedingly rich and beautiful voice 
behind him. He looked around, and although he did 
not know the face he thought that he recognized the 
voice. So when the music ceased he turned around 
and asked the man if he had not been in the Civil war. 
The man replied that he had been a Confederate sol- 
dier. "Were you at such a place on such a night?" 
asked the first. "Yes," he said, "and a curious thing 
happened that night; this hymn recalled it to my mind. 
I was on sentry duty on the edge of a wood. It was 
a dark night and very cold, and I was a little frightened 
because the enemy were supposed to be very near at 
hand. I felt very homesick and miserable, and about mid- 
night, when everything was very still, I was beginning 
to feel very weary and thought that I would comfort 
myself by praying and singing a hymn. I remember 
singing this hymn, 

'All my trust on Thee is stayed, 
All my help from Thee I bring, 

Cover my defenceless head 
With the shadow of Thy wing.' 



42 LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 

After I had sung those words a strange peace came 
down upon me, and through the long night I remember 
having felt no more fear." 

"Now," said the other man, "listen to my story. I 
was a Union soldier, and was in the wood that night 
with a party of scouts. I saw you standing up, although 
I didn't see your face, and my men had their rifles fo- 
cused upon you waiting the word to fire, but when you 
sang out, 

'Cover my defenceless head 
With the shadow of Thy wing,' 

I said, 'Boys, put down your rifles, we will go home.' 
I couldn't kill you after that." 

God was working in each of them, in His own way 
carrying out His will. God keeps his people and 
guides them and without Him life is but a living death. 

III. 

The third element in life about which I wish to speak 
is love. 

In this picture we notice the delicate sense of com- 
panionship, brought out by the young man and the 
young woman. It matters not whether they are brother 
and sister, or lover and loved; there you have the idea 
of friendship, the final ingredient in our life, after the 
two I have named. If the man or the woman had been 
standing in that field alone it would have been incom- 
plete. 

Love is the divine element in life, because "God is 
love." "He that loveth is born of God," therefore, as 
some one has said, let us "keep our friendships in re- 
pair." Let us cultivate the spirit of friendship, and let 
the love of Christ develop it into a great love, not only 



LESSONS FROM THE ANGEL US. 43 

for our friends, but for all humanity. Wherever you go 
and whatever you do, your work will be a failure unless 
you have this element in your life. 

These three things go far toward forming a well- 
rounded life. Some of us may not have these ingre- 
dients in their right proportion, but if you are lacking 
in one or the other of them, then pray for it and work 
for it that your life may be rounded and complete as 
God intended it should be. 



PAX VOBISCUM.* 

I once heard a sermon by a distinguished preacher 
upon "Rest." It was full of beautiful thoughts; but 
when I came to ask myself, "How does he say I can 
get Rest?" there was no answer. The sermon was sin- 
cerely meant to be practical, yet it contained no expe- 
rience that seemed to me to be tangible, nor any ad- 
vice that I could grasp — any advice, that is to say, 
which could help me to find the thing itself as I went 
about the world. 

Yet this omission of what is, after all, the only im- 
portant problem, was not the fault of the preacher. 
The whole popular religion is in the twilight here. And 
when pressed for really working specifics for the ex- 
periences with which it deals, it falters, and seems to 
lose itself in mist. 

The want of connection between the great words of 
religion and every-day life has bewildered and discour- 
aged all of us. Christianity possesses the noblest 
words in the language; its literature overflows with 
terms expressive of the greatest and happiest moods 
which can fill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, 
Love, Light — these words occur with such persistency 
in hymns and prayers that an observer might think 
they formed the staple of Christian experience. But 
on coming to close quarters with the actual life of most 

* Copyright, James Pott & Co. Used by permission. 

44 






PAX VOBISCUM. 



of us, how surely would be be disenchanted. I do not 
think we ourselves are aware how much our religious 
life is 

MADE UP OF PHRASES; 

how much of what we ca 11 Christian Experience is only 
a dialect of the Churches, a mere religious phraseol- 
ogy with almost nothing behind it in what we really 
feel and know. 

To some of us, indeed, the Christian experiences 
seem further away than when we took the first steps in 
the Christian life. That life has not opened out as we 
had hoped. We do not regret our religion, but we are 
disappointed with it. There are times, perhaps, when 
wandering notes from a diviner music stray into our 
spirits; but these experiences come at few and fitful 
moments. We have no sense of possession in them. 
When they visit us, it is a surprise. When they leave 
us, it is without explanation. When we wish their re- 
return, we do not know how to secure it. 

All which means a religion without solid base, and a 
poor and flickering life. It means a great bankruptcy 
in those experiences which give Christianity its per- 
sonal solace and make it attractive to the world, and a 
great uncertainty as to any remedy. It is as if we knew 
everything about health — except the way to get it. 

I am quite sure that the difficulty does not lie in the 
fact that men are not in earnest. This is simply not 
the fact. All around us Christians are wearing them- 
selves out in trying to be better. The amount of spir- 
itual longing in the world — in the hearts of unnum- 
bered thousands of men and women in whom we 
should never suspect it; among the wise and thought- 



4G PAX VOBISCUM. 



ful, among the young and gay, who seldom assuage and 
never betray their thirst — this is one of the most won- 
derful and touching facts of life. It is not more heat 
that is needed, but more light; not more force, but a 
wiser direction to be given to very real energies already 
there. 

The usual advice when one asks for counsel on these 
questions is, "Pray." But this advice is far from ade- 
quate. I shall qualify the statement presently; but let 
me urge it here, with what you will perhaps call daring 
emphasis, that to pray for these things is not the way 
to get them. No one will get them without pray- 
ing; but that men do not get them by praying is the 
simple fact. We have all prayed, and sincerely prayed, 
for such experiences as I have named; prayed, believ- 
ing that that was the way to get them. And yet have 
we got them? The test is experience. I dare not limit 
prayer; still less the grace of God. If you have got 
them in this way, it is well. I am speaking to those, 
be they few or many, who have not got them; to ordi- 
nary men in ordinary circumstances. But if we have 
not got them, it by no means follows that prayer is 
useless. The correct conclusion is only that it is use- 
less, or inadequate rather, for this particular purpose. 
To make prayer the sole resort, the universal panacea 
for every spiritual ill, is as radical a mistake as to pre- 
scribe only one medicine for every bodily trouble. The 
physician who does the last is a quack; the spiritual 
adviser who does the first is 

GROSSLY IGNORANT OF HIS PROFESSION. 

To do nothing but pray is a wrong done to prayer 
itself, and can only end in disaster. It is as if one tried 






PAX VOBISCUM. 47 



to live only with the lungs, as if one assimilated only- 
air and neglected solid food. The lungs are a first es- 
sential; the air is a first essential; but the body has many 
members, given for different purposes, secreting differ- 
ent things, and each has a method of nutrition as spec- 
ial to itself as its own activity. While prayer, then, is 
the characteristic sublimity of the Christian life, it is by 
no means the only one. And those who make it the 
sole alternative, and apply it to purposes for which it 
was never meant, are really doing the greatest harm to 
prayer itself. To couple the word "inadequate" with 
this mighty word is not to dethrone prayer, but to ex- 
alt it. 

WHAT DETHRONES PRAYER 

is unanswered prayer. When men pray for things 
which do not come that way — pray with sincere belief 
that prayer, unaided and alone, will compass what they 
ask — then, not getting what they ask, they often give 
up prayer. 

This is the natural history of much atheism, not only 
an atheism of atheists, but a more terrible atheism of 
Christians, an unconscious atheism, whose roots have 
struck far into many souls whose last breath would be 
spent in denying it. So, I repeat, it is a mistaken 
Christianity which allow men to cherish a blind belief 
in the omnipotence of prayer. Prayer, certainly, when 
the appropriate conditions are fulfilled, is omnipotent, 
but not blind prayer. Blind prayer is a superstition. 
Prayer, in its true sense, contains the sane recognition 
that while man prays in faith, God acts by law. What 
that means in the immediate connection we shall see 
presently. 



48 PAX VOSISCUM. 



What, then, is the remedy? It is impossible to 
doubt that there is a remedy, and it is equally impos- 
sible to believe that it is a secret. The idea that some 
few men, by happy chance or happier temperament, 
have been given the secret — as if there were some sort 
of knack or trick of it — is wholly incredible and 
wrong. Religion must be for all, and the way into 
its loftiest heights must be by a gateway through which 
the peoples of the world may pass. 

I shall have to lead up to this gateway by a very fa- 
miliar path. But as this path is strangely unfrequented 
where it passes into the religious sphere, I must ask your 
forbearance for dwelling for a moment upon the com- 
monest of commonplaces. 

I. EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 

Nothing that happens in the world happens by 
chance. God is a God of order. Everything is ar- 
ranged upon definite principles, and never at random. 
The world, even the religious world, is governed by 
law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is 
governed by law. The Christian experiences are gov- 
erned by law. Men, forgetting this, expect Rest, Joy, 
Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the air like 
snow or rain. But in point of fact they do not do so; 
and if they did, they would no less have their origin, in 
previous activities and be controlled by natural laws. 
Rain and snow do drop from the air, but not without a 
long previous history. They are the mature effects of 
former causes. Equally so are Rest and Peace and 
Joy. They, too, have each a previous history. Storms 
and winds and calms are not accidents, but brought 






PAX VOBISCUM. 49 



about by antecedent circumstances. Rest and Peace 
are but calms in man's inward nature, and arise through 
causes as definite and as inevitable. 

Realize it thoroughly; it is a methodical, not an ac- 
cidental world. If a housewife turns out a good cake, 
it is the result of a sound receipt, carefully applied. 
She cannot mix the assigned ingredients and fire them 
for the appropriate time without producing the result. 
It is not she who has made the cake; it is nature. She 
brings related things together; sets causes at work; 
these causes bring about the result. She is not a cre- 
ator, but an intermediary. She does not expect ran- 
dom causes to produce specific effects — random in- 
gredients would only produce random cakes. So it is 
in the making of Christian experiences. Certain lines 
are followed; certain effects are the result. These 
effects cannot but be the result. But the result can 
never take place without the previous cause. To ex- 
pect results without antecedents is to expect cakes 
without ingredients. That impossibility is precisely 

THE ALMOST UNIVERSAL EXPECTATION. 

Now what I mainly wish to do is to help you firmly 
to grasp this simple principle of Cause and Effect in 
the spiritual world. And instead of applying the prin- 
ciple generally to each of the Christian experiences in 
turn, I shall examine its application to one in some 
little detail. The one I shall select is Rest. And I 
think any one who follows the application in this single 
instance will be able to apply it for himself to all the 
others. 

Take such a sentence as this: African explorers are 
subject to fevers which cause restlessness and delirium. 



50 PAX VOBISCUM. 



Note the expression, " cause restlessness." Restless- 
ness has a cause. Clearly, then, any one who wished to 
get rid of restlessness would proceed at once to deal 
with the cause. If that were not removed, a doctor 
might prescribe a hundred things, and all might be 
taken in turn, without producing the least effect. 
Things are so arranged in the original planning of the 
world that certain effects must follow certain causes, 
and certain causes must be abolished before certain 
effects can be removed. Certain parts of Africa are 
inseparably linked with the physical experience called 
fever; this fever is in turn infallibly linked with a men- 
tal experience called restlessness and delirium. To 
abolish the mental experience the radical method 
would be to abolish the physical experience, and the 
way of abolishing the physical experience would be to 
abolish Africa, or to cease to go there. 

Now this holds good for all other forms of Restless- 
ness. Every other form and kind of Restlessness in 
the world has a definite cause, and the particular kind 
of Restlessness can only be removed by removing the 
allotted cause. 

All this is also true of Rest. Restlessness has a 
cause: must not Rest have a cause ? Necessarily. If 
it were a chance world we would not expect this; but, 
being a methodical world, it cannot be otherwise . Rest, 
physical rest, moral rest, spiritual rest, every kind of 
rest has a cause, as certainly as restlessness. Now 
causes are discriminating. There is one kind of cause 
for every particular effect and no other, and if one par- 
ticular effect is desired, the corresponding cause must 
be set in motion. It is no use proposing finely devised 
schemes, or going through general pious exercises in 



PAX VOBISCUM. 51 

the hope that somehow Rest will come. The Christian 
life is not casual, but causal. All nature is a standing 
protest against the absurdity of expecting to secure 
spiritual effects, or any effects, without the employ- 
ment of appropriate causes. The Great Teacher dealt 
what ousfht to have been the final blow to this infinite 
irrelevancy by a single question, " Do men gather 
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ?" 

Why, then, did the Great Teacher not educate His 
followers fully? Why did He not tell us, for example, 
how such a thing as Rest might be obtained? The 
answer is that He did. But plainly, explicitly, in so 
many words? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in so many 
words. He assigned Rest to its cause, in words with 
which each of us has been familiar from his earliest 
childhood. 

He begins, you remember — for you at once know the 
passage I refer to — almost as if Rest could be had with- 
out any cause; "Come unto me," He says, "and I will 
give yow Rest." 

Rest, apparently, was a favor to be bestowed; 
men had but to come to Him; He would give it to 
every applicant. But the next sentence takes that all 
back. The qualification, indeed, is added instantane- 
ously. For what the first sentence seemed to give was 
next thing to an impossibility. For how, in a literal 
sense, can Rest be given? One could no more give 
away Rest than he could give away Laughter. We 
speak of " causing" laughter, which we can do; but we 
can not give it away. When we speak of "giving" 
pain, we know perfectly well we can not give pain 
away. And when we aim at " giving " pleasure, all 
that we do is to arrange a set of circumstances in such 



52 PAX VOBISCUM. 



a way as that these shall cause pleasure. Of course 
there is a sense, and a very wonderful sense, in which 
a Great Personality breathes upon all who come within 
its influence an abiding peace and trust. Men can be 
to other men as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land; much more Christ; much more Christ as Perfect 
Man; much more still as Savior of the world. But it 
is not this of which I speak. When Christ said He 
would give men Rest, He meant simply that He would 
put them in the way of it. By no act of conveyance 
would or could He make over His own Rest to them. 
He could give them 

HIS RECEIPT 

for it. That was all. But He would not make it for 
them. For one thing it was not in His plan to make 
it for them; for another thing, men were not so planned 
that it could be made for them; and for yet another 
thing, it was a thousand times better that they should 
make it for themselves. 

That this is the meaning becomes obvious from the 
wording- of the second sentence: "Learn of me, and 
ye shall find Rest." Rest, (that is to say), is not a 
thing that can be given, but a thing to be acquired. It 
comes not by an act, but by a process. It is not to be 
found in a happy hour, as one finds a treasure; but 
slowly, as one finds knowledge. It could indeed be no 
more found in a moment than could knowledge. A 
soil has to be prepared for it. Like a fine fruit, it will 
grow in one climate, and not in another; at one alti- 
tude, and not at another. Like all growth it will have 
an orderly development and mature by slow degrees. 

The nature of this slow process Christ clearly defines 



PAX VOBISCUM. 53 



when He says we are to achieve Rest by learning 
"Learn of me," He says, "and ye shall find rest to your 
souls." 

Now consider the extraordinary 

ORIGINALITY OF THIS UTTERANCE. 

How novel the connection between these two words 
"Learn" and "Rest." How few of us have ever asso- 
ciated them — ever thought that Rest was a thing to be 
learned; ever laid ourselves out for it as we would to 
learn a language; ever practised it as we would prac- 
tice the violin? Does it not show how entirely new 
Christ's teaching still is to the world, that so old and 
threadbare an aphorism should still be so little known? 
The last thing most of us would have thought of would 
have been to associate Rest with Work. 

What must one work at? What is that which if duly 
learned will find the soul of man in Rest? Christ 
answers without the least hesitation. He specifies two 
things — Meekness and Lowliness. "Learn of me," He 
says, "for I am meek and lowly in heart." 

Now these two things are not chosen at random. To 
these accomplishments, in a special way, Rest is at- 
tached. Learn these, in short, and you have already 
found Rest. These as they stand are direct causes of Rest ; 
will produce it at once; cannot but produce it at once. 
And if you think for a single moment, you will see how 
this is necessarily so, for causes are never arbitrary, 
and the connection between antecedent and consequent 
here and everywhere lies deep in the nature of things. 

What is the connection, then? I answer by a further 
question. 

WHAT ARE THE CHIEF CAUSES OF UNREST? 

It you know yourself, you will answer — Pride, Self- 



54 PAX VOBISCUM. 






ishness, Ambition. As you look back upon the past 
years of your life, is it not true that its unhappiness 
has chiefly come from the succession of personal mor- 
tifications and almost trivial disappointments which 
the intercourse of life has brought you? Great trials 
come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast 
them; but it is the petty friction of our every-day life 
with one another, the jar of business or of work, the 
discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our am- 
bition, the crossing of our will or the taking down of 
our conceit, which make inward peace impossible 
Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied 
selfishness — these are the old, vulgar, universal 

SOURCES OF MAN'S UNREST. 

Now it is obvious why Christ pointed out as the two 
chief objects for attainment the exact opposites of 
these. To meekness and lowliness these things simply 
do not exist. They cure unrest by making it impos- 
sible. These remedies do not trifle with surface symp- 
toms; they strike at once at removing causes. The 
ceaseless chagrin of a self-c entered life can be re- 
moved at once by learning meekness and lowliness of 
heart. He who learns them is forever proof against 
it. He lives henceforth a charmed life. Christianity 
is a fine inoculation, a transfusion of healthy blood into 
an anaemic or poisoned soul. No fever can attack a 
perfectly sound body; no fever of unrest can disturb a 
soul which has breathed the air or learned the ways 
QJLChrist. 

Men sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly 
away and be at Rest. But flying away will not help 
us. "The Kingdom of God is within you." We aspire 



PAX VOBISCUM. 55 



to the top to look for Rest; it lies at the bottom. 
Water rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So 
do men. Hence, be lowly. The man who has no 
opinion of himself at all can never be hurt if others do 
not acknowledge him. Hence, be meek. He who is 
without expectation cannot fret if nothing comes to 
him. It is self-evident that these things are so. The 
lowly man and the meek man are really above all 
other men, above all other things. They dominate 
the world because they do not care for it. The miser 
does not possess gold, gold possesses him. But 
the meek possess it. "The meek," said Christ, "inherit 
the earth." They do not buy it; they do not conquer 
it; but they inherit it. 

There are people who go about the world looking 
out for slights, and they are necessarily miserable, for 
they find them at every turn — especially the imaginary 
ones. One has the same pity for such men as for the 
very poor. They are the morally illiterate. They have 
had no real education, for they have never learned 



HOW TO LIVE. 

Few men know how to live. We grow up at. random 
carrying into mature life the merely animal methods 
and motives which we had as little children. And it 
does not occur to us that all this must be changed 
that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest 
of the Fine Arts; that it has to be learned with life- 
long patience, and that the years of our pilgrimage are 
all too short to master it triumphantly. 

Yet this is what Christianity is for — to teach men 

THE ART OF LIFE. 

And its whole curriculum lies in one word — "Learn of 



56 PAX VOBISCUM. 



me." Unlike most education, this is almost purely- 
personal; it is not to be had from books, or lectures or 
creeds or doctrines. It is a study from the life. Christ 
never said much in mere words about the Christian 
graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not 
merely copy Him. We learn His art by living with 
Him, like the old apprentices with their masters. 

Now we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the 
weary and heavy-laden is a call to begin life over 
again upon a new principle — upon His own principle. 
"Watch my way of doing things," He says; "Follow me. 
Take lffe as I take it. Be meek and lowly, and you 
will find Rest." 

I do not say, remember, that the Christian life to 
every man, or to any man, can be a bed of roses. No 
educational process can be this. And perhaps if some 
men knew how much was involved in the simple "learn" 
of Christ, they would not enter His school with so 
irresponsible a heart. For there is not only much to 
learn, but 

MUCH TO UNLEARN. 

Many men never go to this school at all till their disposi- 
tion is already half ruined and character has taken on its 
fatal set. To learn arithmetic is difficult at fifty — much 
more to learn Christianity. To learn simply what it is to 
be meek and lowly, in the case of one who has had no 
lessons in that in childhood, may cost him half of what he 
values most on earth. Do we realize, for instance, that 
the way of teaching humility is generally by humiliation? 
There is probably no other school for it. When a man 
enters himself as a pupil in such a school it means a 
very great thing. There is much Rest there, but there 
is also much Work. 



PAX VOBISCUM. 57 



I should be wrong, even though my theme is the 
brighter side, to ignore the cross and minimize the 
cost. Only it gives to the cross a more definite mean- 
ing, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directly and 
casually with the growth of the inner life. Our plati- 
tudes on the "benefits of affliction" are usually about 
as vague as our theories of Christian Experience. 
"Somehow" we believe affliction does us good. But it 
is not a question of "Somehow." The result is definite, 
calculable, necessary. It is under the strictest law of 
cause and effect, The first effect of losing one's for- 
tune, for instance, is humiliation; and the effect of 
humiliation, as we have just seen, is to make one 
humble; and the effect of being humble is to produce 
Rest. It is a roundabout way, apparently, of producing 
Rest; but Nature generally works by circular processes; 
and it is not certain that there is any other way of 
becoming humble, or of finding Rest. If a man could 
make himself humble to order, it might simplify mat- 
ters; but we do not find that this happens. Hence we 
must all go through the mill. Hence death, death to 
the lower self, is the nearest gate and the quickest 
road to life. 

Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life out- 
wardly was one of the most troubled lives that was 
ever lived: tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, 
the waves breaking over it all the time till the worn 
body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a 
sea of glass. The great calm was always there. At 
any moment you might have gone to Him and found 
Rest. Even when the blood-hounds were dogging Him 
in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples 
and offered them, as a last legacy, "My peace. ' Noth- 



58 PAX VOBISCUM. 



ing ever for a moment broke the serenity of Christ's 
life on earth. Misfortune could not* reach Him; He 
had no fortune. Food, raiment, money — fountain-heads 
of half the world's weariness— He simply did not care 
for; they played no part in His life; He "took no 
thought" for them. It was impossible to affect Him 
by lowering His reputation. He had already made 
Himself of no reputation. He was dumb before insult. 
When he was reviled, He reviled not again. In fact, 
there was 

NOTHING THAT THE WORLD COULD DO TO HIM 

that could ruffle the surface of His spirit. 

Such living, as mere living, is altogether unique. It 
is only when we see what it was in Him that we can 
know what the word Rest means. It lies not in emo- 
tions, or in the absence of emotions. It is not a hal- 
lowed feeling that comes over us in church. It is not 
something that the preacher has in his voice. It is not 
in nature, or in poetry, or in music — though in all these 
there is soothing. It is the mind at leisure from itself. 
It is the perfect poise of The soul; the absolute adjust- 
ment of the inward man to the stress of all outward 
things; the preparedness against every emergency; the 
stability of assured convictions; the eternal calm of an 
invulnerable faith; the repose of a heart set deep in 
God. It is the mood of the man who says, with 
Browning, "God's in His Heaven, all's well with the 
world."/ ' 

Two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his 
conception of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, 
lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second 
threw on his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a fra- 



PAX VO BIS CUM. 59 



gile birch -tree bending over the foam; at the fork of a 
branch, almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat 
on its nest. The first was only Stag?iatio?i ; the last was 
Rest. Foi/in Rest there are always two elements — 
tranquillity and energy; silence and turbulence; creation 
and destruction; fearlessness and fearfulness. This it 
was in Christ.^/ 

It is quite plain from all this that whatever else He 
claimed to be or to do, He at least 

KNEW HOW TO LIVE. .,_ 

All this is the perfection of living, offliving in the mere 
sense of passing through the world in the best way./ 
Hence His anxiety to communicate His idea of life to 
others. He came, He said, to give men life, true life, 
a more abundant life than they were living; "the life," 
as the fine phase in the Revised Version has it, "that is 
life indeed." This is what He Himself possessed, and 
it was this which He offers to mankind. And hence 
His direct appeal for all to come to Him who had not 
made much of life, who were weary and heavy-laden. 
These He would teach His secret. They, also, should 
know "the life that is life indeed." 

II. WHAT YOKES ARE FOR. 

There is still one doubt to clear up. After the state- 
ment, "Learn of Me," Christ throws in the disconcert- 
ing qualification: 

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me." 

Why, if all this be true, does He call it -&yoke? Why, 

while professing to give Rest, does He with the next 

breath whisper "burden"? Is the Christian life, after all, 

what its enemies take it for — an additional weight to 



60 PAX VOBISCUM. 



the already great woe of life, some extra punctiliousness 
about duty, some painful devotion to observances, some 
heavy restriction and trammeling of. all that is joyous 
and free in the world? Is life not hard and sorrowful 
enough without being fettered with yet another yoke? 
It is astounding how so glaring a misunderstanding 
of this plain sentence should ever have passed into cur- 
rency. Did you ever stop to ask what a yoke is really 
-for? Is it to be a burden to the animal which wears it? 
It is just the opposite. It is to make its burden light. 
Attached to the oxen in any other way than by a yoke, 
the plough would be intolerable. Worked by means 
of a yoke, it is light. A yoke is not an instrument of 
torture; it is 

AN INSTRUMENT OF MERCY. 

It is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard; 
it is a gentle device to make hard labor light. It is not 
meant to give pain, but to save pain. And yet men 
speak of the yoke of Christ as if it were slavery, and 
look upon those who wear it as objects of compassion. 
For generations we have had homilies on "The Yoke of 
Christ" — some delighting in portraying its narrow ex- 
actions; some seeking in these exactions the marks of 
its divinity; others apologizing for it, and toning it 
down; still others assuring us that, although it be very 
bad, it is not to be compared with the positive blessings 
of Christianity. How many, especially among the 
young, has this one mistaken phrase driven forever 
away from the kingdom of God? Instead of making 
Christ attractive, it makes Him out a taskmaster, nar- 
rowirg life by petty restrictions, calling for self-denial 
where none is necessary, making misery a virtue under 






PAX VO BIS CUM. 61 



the plea that it is the yoke of Christ, and happiness 
criminal because it now and then evades it. According 
to this conception, Christians are at best the victims of 
a depressing fate; their life is a penance; and their hope 
for the next world purchased by a slow martyrdom in 
this. 

The mistake has arisen from taking the word "yoke" 
here in the same sense as in the expressions "under the 
yoke,"or"weartheyokein h is youth." ButinChrist'sil- 
lustrationitis hot the jugum of. the Roman soldier,but the 
simple "harness" or "ox-collar" of the Eastern peasant. 
It is the literal wooden yoke which He, with His own 
hands in the carpenter shop, had probably often made. 
He knew the difference between a smooth yoke and a 
rough one, a bad fit and a good fit; the difference also 
it made to the patient animal which had to wear 
it. The rough yoke galled, and the burden was heavy; 
the smooth yoke caused no pain, and the load was 
lightly drawn. The badly fitted harness was a misery; 
the well-fitted collar was "easy." 

And what was the "burden"? It was not some spe- 
cial burden laid upon the Christian, some unique inflic- 
tion that they alone must bear. It was what all men 
bear. It was simply life, human life itself, the general 
burden of life which all must carry with them from the 
cradle to the grave. Christ saw that men took life 
painfully. To some it was a weariness, to others a 
failure, to many a tragedy, to all a struggle and a pain. 
How to carry this burden of life had been the whole 
world's problem. It is still the whole world's problem. 
And here is Christ's solution: "Carry it as I do. Take 
life as I take it. Look at it from My point of view. 
Interpret it upon My principles. Take My yoke and 



62 PAX VOBISCUM. 



learn of Me, and you will find it easy. For My yoke 
is easy, works easily, sits right upon the shoulders, and 
therefore My burden is light." 

There is no suggestion here that religion will absolve 
any man from bearing burdens. That would be to ab- 
solve him from living, since it is life itself that is the 
burden. What Christianity does propose is to make it 
tolerable. 

Christ's yoke 

is simply His secret for the alleviation of human life, 
His prescription for the best and happiest method of 
living. Men harness themselves to the work and stress 
of the world in clumsy and unnatural ways. The har- 
ness they put on is antiquated. A rough, ill-fitted col- 
lar at the best, they make its strain and friction past 
enduring, by placing it where the neck is most sensi- 
tive; and by mere continuous irritation this sensitive- 
ness increases until the whole nature is quick and sore. 

This is the origin, among other things, of a disease 
called "touchiness" — a disease which, in spite of its in- 
nocent name, is one of the gravest sources of restless- 
ness in the world. Touchiness, when it becomes 
chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposi- 
tion. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; con- 
ceit, with a hair-trigger. The cure is to shift the yoke 
to some other place; to let men and things touch us 
through some new and perhaps as yet unused part of 
our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while 
the old sensitiveness is becoming numb from want of 
use. 

It is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to 
adjust the burden of life to those who bear it, and them 






PAX FOB/SCUM. 63 



to it. It has a perfectly miraculous gift of healing. 
Without doing any violence to human nature it sets it 
right with life, harmonizing it with all surrounding 
things, and restoring those who are jaded with the 
fatigue and dust of the world to a new grace of living. 
In the mere matter of altering the perspective of life 
and changing the proportions of things, its function in 
lightening the .care of man is altogether its own. 

The weight of a load depends upon the attraction of 
the earth. Suppose the attraction of the earth were 
removed? A ton on some other planet, where the at- 
traction of gravity is less, does not weigh half a ton. 
^^Now Christianity removes the attraction of the earth; 
and this is one way in which it diminishes man's burden. 
It makes them citizens of another world. What was a 
ton yesterday is not half a ton today. So without 
changing one's circumstances, merely by offering a 
wider horizon and a different standard, it alters the 
whole aspect of the world. 

Christianity as Christ taught is the truest philosophy 
of life ever spoken. But let us be quite sure when we 
speak of Christianity that we mean Christ's Christian- 
ity. Other versions are either caricatures, or exag- 
gerations, or misunderstandings, or shortsighted and 
surface readings. For the most part their attainment 
is hopeless and the results wretched. But I care not 
who the person is, or through what vale of tears he has 
passed, or is about to pass, there is a new life for him 
along this path. 

III. HOW FRUITS GROW. 

Were Rest my subject, there are other things I should 
wish to say about it, and other kinds of Rest of which I 



64 PAX V OBI SCUM. 



should like to speak. But that is not my subject. My 
theme is that the Christian experiences are not the 
work of magic, but come under the law of Cause and 
Effect. I have chosen Rest only as a single illustra- 
tion of the workingof that principle. If there were time 
I might next run over all the Christian experiences in 
turn, and show the same wide law applies to each; but 
I think it may serve the better purpose if I leave this 
further exercise to yourselves. I know no Bible study 
that you will find more full of fruit, or which will take 
you nearer to the ways of God, or make the Christian 
life itself more solid or more sure. I shall add only a 
single other illustration of what I mean, before I close. 
Where does Joy come from? I knew a Sunday 
scholar whose conception of Joy was that it was a 
thing made in lumps and kept somewhere in Heaven, 
and that when people prayed for it, pieces were some- 
how let down and fitted into their souls. I am not sure 
that views as gross and material are not often held by 
people who ought to be wiser. In reality, Joy is as 
much a matter, of Cause and Effect as pain. No one 
can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the 
ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, 
must be grown. There is a very clever trick in India 
called the mango trick. A seed is put in the ground 
and covered up, and after diverse incantations a full- 
blown mango-bush appears within five minutes. I 
never met any one who knew how the thing was done, 
but I never met any one who believed it to be any- 
thing else than a conjuring trick. The world is pretty 
unanimous now in its belief in the orderliness of Na- 
ture. Men may not know how fruits grow, but they do 
know that they cannot grow in an hour. Some lives 



PAX VOBISCUM. 65 



have not even a stalk on which fruits could hang, even 
if they did grow in an hour. Some have never planted 
one sound seed of Joy in all their lives; and others who 
may have planted a germ or two have lived so little in 
sunshine that they never could come to maturity. 

Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon 
this subject into one of the most exquisite of His par- 
ables. I should in any instance have appealed to His 
teaching here, as in the case of Rest, for I do not wish 
you to think I am speaking words of my own. But it so 
happens that He has dealt with it in words of unusual 
fullness. 

I neeO not recall the whole illustration. It is the 
parable of the Vine. Did you ever think why Christ 
spoke that parable? He did not merely throw it into 
space as a fine illustration of general truths. It was 
not simply a statement of the mystical union, and the 
doctrine of an indwelling Christ. It was that; but it 
was more. After He had said it, He did what was not 
an unusual thing when He was teaching His greatest 
lessons — He turned to the disciples and said He would 
tell them why He had spoken it. It was to tell them 

HOW TO GET JOY. 

"These things have I spoken unto you," He said, "that 
My Joy might remain in you, and that your Joy might 
be full." It was a purposed and deliberate communi- 
cation of His 

SECRET OF HAPPINESS. 

Go back over these verses, then, and you will find 
the Causes of this Effect, the spring, and the only 
spring, out of which true Happiness comes. I am not 



66 PAX VOBlSCUM. 



going to analyze them in detail. I ask you to enter 
into the words for yourselves. 

Remember, in the first place, that the Vine was the 
Eastern symbol of Joy. It was its fruit that made glad 
the heart of man. Yet, however innocent that gladness 
— for the expressed juice of the grape was the common 
drink at every peasant's board — the gladness was only 
a gross and passing thing. This was not true happi- 
ness, and the vine of the Palestine vineyards was not 
the true vine. "Christ was the true Vine." Here, then, 
is the ultimate source of Joy. Through whatever 
media it reaches us, all true Joy and Gladness find their 
source in Christ. 

By this, of course, is not meant that the actual Joy 
experienced is transferred from Christ's nature, or is 
something passed on from Him to us. What is passed 
on is His method of getting it. There is, indeed, a 
sense in which we can share another's joy or another's 
sorrow. But that is another matter. Christ is the 
source of Joy to men in the sense in which He is the 
source of Rest. His people share His life, and there- 
fore share its consequences, and one of these is Joy. 
His method of living is one that in the nature of things 
produces Joy. When He spoke of His Joy remaining 
with us He meant in part that the causes which pro- 
duced it should continue to act. His followers, (that 
is to say), by repeating His life would experience its 
accompaniments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, would re- 
main with them. 

The medium through which this Joy comes is next 
explained: "He that abideth in Me, the same bring- 
eth forth much fruit." Fruit first, Joy next; the one 
the cause or medium of the other. Fruit-bearing is 



I 



PAX VOBISCUM. 67 



the necessary antecedent; Joy both the necessary con- 
sequent and the necessary accompaniment. It lay 
partly in the bearing fruit, partly in the fellowship 
which made that possible. Partly, that is to say, Joy 
lay in mere constant living in Christ's presence, with 
all that that implied of peace, of shelter, and of love; 
partly in the influence of that Life upon mind and char- 
acter and will; and partly in the inspiration to live and 
work for others, with all that that brought of self-rid- 
dance and joy in others' gain. All these, in different 
ways and at different times, are 

SOURCES OF PURE HAPPINESS. 

Even the simplest of them — to do good to other peo- 
ple — is an instant and infallible specific. There is no 
mystery about Happiness whatever. Put in the right 
ingredients and it must come out. He that abideth in 
Him will bring forth much fruit; and bringing forth 
much fruit is Happiness. The infallible receipt for 
Happiness, then, is to do good; and the infallible re- 
ceipt for doing good is to abide in Christ. The surest 
proof that all this is a plain matter of Cause and Effect 
is that men may try every other conceivable way of 
finding happiness, and they will fail. Only the right 
cause in each case can produce the right effect. 

Then the Christian experiences are our own making? 
In the same sense in which grapes are our own making 
and no more. All fruits grow — whether they grow in 
the soil or in the soul; whether they are the fruits of 
the wild grape or of the True Vine. No man can make 
things grow. He ca n get them to grozv by arranging all 
the circumstances and fulfilling all the conditions. Bui 
the growing is done by God. Causes and effects an 



68 PAX VOBISCUM. 



eternal arrangements, set in the constitution of the 
world; fixed beyond man's ordering. What man can 
do is to place himself in the midst of a chain of sequen- 
ces. Thus he can get things to grow: thus he himself 
can grow. But the power is the Spirit of God. 

What more need I add but this — test the method by 
experiment. Do not imagine that you have got these 
things because you know how to get them. As well 
try to feed upon a cookery book. But I think I can 
promise that if you try in this simple and natural way, 
you will not fail. Spend the time you have spent in 
sighing for fruits in fulfilling the conditions of their 
growth. The fruits will come, must come. We have 
hitherto paid immense attention to effects, to the mere 
experiences themselves; we have described them, ex- 
tolled them, advised them, prayed for them — done , 
everything but find out wh at caused them. Henceforth 

LET US DEAL WITH CAUSES. 

"To be," says Lotze, " is to be in relations." About 
every other method of living the Christian life there is 
an uncertainty. About every other method of acquir- 
ing the Christian experiences there is a ''perhaps." 
But in so far as this method is the way of nature, it 
cannot fail. Its guarantee is the laws of the universe — 
and these are " the Hands of the Living God." 

THE TRUE VINE. 

" I am the true vine, and my Father is the husband- 
man. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he 
taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he 
purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye 
are clean through the word which I have spoken unto 



PAX V OBI SCUM. 69 



you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch can- 
not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no 
more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye 
are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, 
the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye 
can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast 
forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather 
them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 
If ye abide in me, and my word abide in you, ye shall 
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein 
is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so ye 
shall be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, 
so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye 
keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; 
even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and 
abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto 
you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your 
joy might be full." 



"FIRST!" 

AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 

I have three heads to give you. The first is "Geog- 
raphy," the second is "Arithmetic," and the third is 
"Grammar." 

I. 

First. Geography tells us where to find places. 

Where is the Kingdom of God? It is said that when 
a Prussian officer was killed in the Franco-Prussian 
war, a map of France was very often found in his 
pocket. When we wish to occupy a country, we ought 
to know its geography. Now, where is the Kingdom 
of God? A boy over there says, "It is in heaven." 
No; it is not in heaven. Another boy says, "It is in the 
Bible. No; it is not in the Bible. Another boy says, 
"It must be in the Church," No; it is not in the Church. 
Heaven is only the capital of the Kingdom of God; 
the Bible is the guide-book to it; the Church is the 
weekly parade of those who belong to it. If you turn 
to the seventeenth chapter of Luke you will find out 
where the Kingdom of God really is: "The Kingdom 
of God is within you" — within you. The Kingdom of 
God is inside people. 

I remember once taking a walk by the river near 
where the Falls of Niagara are, and I noticed a re- 
markable figure walking along the river bank. I had 
been some time in America. I had seen black men, 

70 



"FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 71 

and red men, and yellow men, and white men; black 
men, the Negroes; red men, the Indians; yellow men, 
the Chinese; white men, the Americans. But this man 
looked quite different in his dress from anything I had 
ever seen. When he came a little closer, I saw he was 
wearning a kilt; when he came a little nearer still, I 
saw that he was dressed exactly like a Highland sol- 
dier. When he came quiet near, I said to him: 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Why should I not be here?" he replied; "don't you 
know this is British soil? When you cross the river 
you come into Canada." 

This soldier was thousands of miles from England, 
and yet he was in the Kingdom of England. Wherever 
there is an English heart beating loyal to the Queen of 
Britain, there is England. Wherever there is a boy | 
whose heart is loyal to the Kingdom of God, the King- \ 
dom of God is within him. 

What is the Kingdom of God? Every Kingdom has 
its exports, its products. Go down the river here and 
you will find ships coming in with cotton; you know 
they come from America. You will find ships with 
tea; you know they are from China. Ships with wool; 
you know they come from Australia. Ships with 
sugar; you know they come from Java. 

What comes from the Kingdom of God? Again we 
must refer to our Guide-book. Turn to Romans, 
and we shall find what the Kingdom of God is. I will 
read it: "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, 
joy" — three things. "The Kingdom of God is right- 
eousness, peace, joy." Righteousness, of course, is 
just doing what is right. Any boy who does what is 
right has the Kingdom of God within him. Any boy 



72 "FIRST/" AN ADDRESS TO BOVS. 

who, instead of being quarrelsome, lives at peace with 
the other boys, has the Kingdom of God within him. 
Any boy whose heart is filled with joy because he does 
what is right, has the Kingdom of God within him. 
The Kingdom of God is not going to religious meet- 
ings, and hearing strange religious__e xperiences ; the 
Kingdom of God is doing what is right — living at peace 
with all men, being filled with joy in the Holy Ghost. 

Boys, if you are going to be Christians, be Christians 
as boys, and not as your grandmothers. A grand- 
mother has to be a Christian as a grandmother, and 
that is the right and the beautiful thing for her; but if 
you cannot read your Bible by the hour as your grand- 
mother can, or delight in meetings as she can, don't 
think you are necessarily a bad boy. When you are 
your grandmother's age you will have your grand- 
mother's kind of religion. Meantime, be a Christian 
as a boy. Live a boy's life. Do the straight thing; 
seek the kingdom of righteousness and honor and 
truth. Keep the peace with the boys about you, and 
be filled with the joy of being a loyal, and simple, and 
natural, and boy-like servant of Christ. 

You can very easily tell a house, or a workshop, or 
an office where the Kingdom of God is not. The first 
thing you see in that place is that the "straight thing" 
is not always done. Customers do not get fair play. 
You are in danger of learning to cheat and to lie. Bet- 
ter a thousand times to starve than to stay in a place 
where you cannot do what is right. 

Or, when you go into your workshop, you find every- 
body sulky, touchy, and ill-tempered, everybody at 
daggers-drawn with everybody else, some of the men 
not on speaking terms with some of the others, and 



"FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 73 

the whole feel of the place miserable and unhappy. 
The Kingdom of God is not th ere, for it is peace. It 
is the Kingdom of the Devil that is anger, and wrath 
and malice. 

If you want to get the Kingdom of God into your 
workshop, or into your home, let the quarreling be 
stopped. Live in peace and harmony and brotherli- 
ness with everyone. For the Kingdom of God is a 
kingdom of brothers. It is a great Society, founded 
by Jesus Christ, of all the people who try to live like 
Him, and to make the world better and sweeter and 
happier. Wherever a boy is trying to do that, in the 
house or on the street, in the workshop or on the base- 
ball field, there is the Kingdom of God. And every 
boy, however small or obscure or poor, who is seeking 
that, is a member of it. You see now, I hope, what 
the Kingdom is. 

II. 

I pass, therefore, to the second head; What was it? 
Arithmetic. Are there any arithmetic words in this 
text? "Added." What other arithmetic words? 
"First." 

Now, don't you think you could not have anything 
better to seek "first" than the things I have named to 
do what is right, to live at peace, and be always mak- 
ing those about you happy? You see at once why 
Christ tells us to seek these things first — because 
they are 

THE BEST WORTH SEEKING. 

Do you know anything better than these three things, 
anything happier, purer, nobler? If you do, seek them 
first. But if you do not, seek first the Kingdom of 



74 "FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 

God. I do not tell you to be religious. You know 
that. I do not tell you to seek the Kingdom of 
God. I tell you to seek the Kingdom of God first. 
First. Not many people do that. They put a little 
religion into their life — once a week, perhaps. They 
might just as well let it alone. It is not worth seek- 
ing the Kingdom of God unless we seek it first. 

Suppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang 
it over the bow, and send that ship to sea, will it ever 
reach the other side? Certainly not. It will drift 
about anyhow. Keep religion in its place, and it will 
take you straight through life and straight to your 
Father in heaven when life is over. But if you do not 
put it in its place, you may just as well have nothing 
to do with it. Religion out of its place in a human 
life is the most miserable thing in the world. There is 
nothing that requires so much to be kept in its place 
as religion, and its place is what? second? third? 
"First." Boys, first the Kingdom of God; make it so 
that it will be natural to you to think about that the 
very first thing. 

There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentle- 
man who made telegraphs. (The gentleman told me 
this himself.) One day this boy was up on the top of 
a four-story house with a number of men fixing up a 
telegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was 
getting late, and the men said they were going away 
home, and the boy was to nip off the ends of the wire 
himself. Before going down they told him to be sure 
to go back to the workshop, when he was finished, with 
his master's tools. 

"Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you 
do," said the foreman. 



"FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 75 

The boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off 
the ends of the wire. It was a very cold winter night, 
and the dusk was gathering. He lost his hold and fell 
upon the slates, slid down, and then over and over to 
the ground below. A clothes-rope stretched across the 
"green" on to which he was just about to fall, caught 
him on the chest and broke his fall; but the shock was 
terrible, and he lay unconscious among some clothes 
upon the green. 

An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken 
and the clothes all soiled, thought the boy was drunk, 
shook him, scolded him, and went for the policeman. 
The boy with the shaki ng came back to consciousness, 
rubbed his eyes, and got upon his feet. What do you 
think he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. 
He climbed the ladder. He got on to the roof of 
the house. He gathered up his tools, put them into 
his basket, took them down, and when he got to the 
ground again fainted dead away. 

Just then the policeman came, saw there was some 7 
thing seriously wrong, and carried him away to the 
hospital, where he lay for some time. I am glad to 
say he got better. 

What was his first thought at that terrible moment? 
His duty. He was not thinking of himself; he was 
thinking about his master. First, the Kingdom of God. 

But there is another arithmetic word. What is it? 
"Added." 

You know the difference between addition and sub- 
traction. Now, that is 

A VERY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE 

in religion, because — and it is a very strange thing — 



76 "FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 

very few people know the difference when they begin 
to talk about religion. They often tell boys that if 
they seek the Kingdom of God, everything else is go- 
ing to be subtracted from them. They tell them that 
they are going to become gloomy, miserable, and will 
lose everything that makes a boy's life worth living — 
that they will have to stop baseball and story-books, 
and become little old men, and spend all their time in 
going to meetings and in singing hymns. 

Now, that is not true. Christ never said anything 
like that. Christ said we are to "Seek first the King- 
dom of God," and 

EVERYTHING ELSE WORTH HAVING 

is to be added unto us. If there is anything I would like 
you to remember, it is these two arithmetic words — 
"first" and "added." 

I do not mean by "added" that if you become re- 
ligious you are all going to become rich. Here is a 
boy, who, in sweeping out the shop tomorrow, finds a 
quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well, nobody 
has missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins 
to burn a hole there. By breakfast time he wishes 
that money were in his master's pocket, And by-and- 
by he goes to his master. He says (to himself, and not 
to his master), "I was at the Boys' Brigade yesterday, 
and I was told to seek first that which was right." 
Then he says to his master: 

"Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the 
floor." 

The master puts it in the till. What has the boy 
got in his pocket? Nothing; but he has got the King- 
dom of God in his heart. He has laid up treasure in 






"FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 77 

heaven, which is of infinitely more worth than the 
quarter. 

Now, that boy does not find a dollar on his way 
home. I have known that happen, but that is not what 
is meant by "adding," It does not mean that God is 
going to pay him in his own coin, for He pays in better 
coin. 

Yet I remember once hearing of a boy who was paid 
in both ways. He was very, very poor. He lived in a 
foreign country, and his mother said to him one day 
that he must go into the great city and start in busi- 
ness, and she took his coat and cut it open and sewed 
between the lining and the coat forty golden dinars, 
which she had saved up for many years to start him in 
life. She told him to take care of robbers as he went 
across the desert; and as he was going out of the door 
she said: 

"My boy, I have only two words for you — 'Fear God, 
and never tell a lie.'" 

The boy started off, and towards evening he saw 
glittering in the distance the minarets of the great city. 
But between the city and himself he saw a cloud of 
dust. It came nearer. Presently he saw that it was a 
band of robbers. 

One of the robbers left the rest and rode toward him, 
and said: 

"Boy, what have you got?" 

The boy looked him in the face said: 

"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat." 

The robber laughed and wheeled around his horse 
and went away back. He would not believe the boy. 

Presently another robber came and he said: 

"Boy, what have you got?" 



78 "FIX ST.'" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 

"Forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat." 

The robber said: "The boy is a fool," and wheeled 
his horse and rode away back. 

By and by the robber captain came and he said: 

"Boy, what have you got?" 

"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat." 

The robber dismounted, and put his hand over the 
boy's breast, felt something round, counted one, two, 
three, four, five, till he counted out the forty golden 
coins. He looked the boy in the face and said: 

"Why did you tell me that? 

The boy said: "Because of God and my mother." 

The robber leaned on his spear and thought and said: 

"Wait a moment." 

He mount ed his horse, rode back to the rest of the 
robbers, and came back in about five minutes with his 
dress changed. This time he looked not like a robber, 
but like a merchant. He took the boy up on his horse 
and said: 

"My boy, I have long wanted to do something for 
my God and for my mother, and I have this moment 
renounced my robber's life. I am also a merchant. I 
have a large business house in the city. I want you to 
come and live with me, to teach me about your God; 
and you wi 11 be rich, and your mother some day will 
come and live with us." 

And it all happened. By seeking first the Kingdom 
of God, all these things were added unto him. 

Boys, banish forever from your minds the idea that 
religion is subtraction. It does not tell us to give things 
up, but rather gives us something so much better that 
they give themselves up. When you see a boy on the 
street whipping a top, you know, perhaps, that yon 



"FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 79 

could not make that boy happier than by giving him a 
top, a whip, and half an hour to whip it. But next 
birthday, when he looks back he says, 

"What a goose I was last year to be delighted with a 
top. What I want now is a baseball bat." 

Then when he becomes an old man, he does not care 
in the least for a baseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug 
fireside and a newspaper every day. He wonders how 
he could ever have taken up his thoughts with baseball 
bats and whipping-tops. 

Now, when a boy becomes a Christian, he grows 
out of the evil things one by one — that is to say, if they 
are really evil — which he used to set his heart upon; 
(of course I do not mean baseball bats, for they are not 
evils); and so instead of telling people to give up 
things, we are safer to tell them to "seek first the 
Kingdom of God," and then they will get new things 
and better things, and 

THE OLD THINGS WILL DROP OFF 

of themselves. This is what is meant by the "new 
heart." It means that God puts into us new thoughts 
and new wishes, and we become quite different. 

III. 

Lastly, and very shortly. What was the third head? 
"Grammar." Right. 

Now, I require a clever boy to answer the next ques- 
tion. What is the verb? "Seek." Very good: "seek." 
What mood is it in? "Imperative mood." What does 
that mean? "A command." What is the soldier's first 
lesson? "Obedience." Have you obeyed this com- 
mand? Remember the imperative mood of these 
words, "Seek first the Kingdom of God." 



80 "FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 

This is the command of your King. It mustbe done. 
I have been trying to show you what a splendid hing 
it is; what a reasonable thing it is; what a happy thing 
it is; but beyond all these reasons, it is a thing that 
must be done, because we are commanded to do it by 
our Captain. Now, there is His command to seek Jirst 
the Kingdom of God. Have you done it? 

"Well," I know some boys will say, "we are going to 
have a good time, enj oy life, and then we are going to 
seek — last — the Kingdom of God." 

Now, that is mean; it is nothing else than mean for a 
boy to take all the good gifts that God has given him, 
and then give him nothing back in return but 

HIS WASTED LIFE. 

God wants boys' lives, not only their souls. It is for 
active service that soldiers are drilled, and trained, and 
fed, and armed. That is why you and I are in the world 
at all — not to prepare to go out of it some day, but to 
serve God actively in it now. It is monstrous, and 
shameful, and cowardly to talk of seeking the Kingdom 
last. Itis shirking duty, abandoning one's rightful post, 
playing into the enemy's hand by doing nothing to turn 
his flank. Every hour a Kingdom is coming in your 
heart, in your home, in the world near you, be it a 
Kingdom of Darkness or a Kingdom of Light. You 
are placed where you are, in a particular business, in a 
particular street, to help on there the Kingdom of God. 
You cannot do that when you are old and ready to die. 
By that time your companions will have fought their 
fight, and lost or won. If they lose, will you not be 
sorry that you did not help them? Will you not regret 
that only at the last you helped the Kingdom of God? 



"FIRST!" AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 81 

Perhaps you will not be able to do it then. And then 
your life has been lost indeed. 

Very few people have the opportunity to seek the 
Kingdom of God at the end. Christ, knowing all that, 
knowing that religion was a thing for our life, not merely 
for our death-bed, has laid this command upon us now: 
"Seek first the Kingdom of God." 

I am going to leave you with this text itself. Every 
boy in the world should obey it. 

Boys, before you go to work to-morrow, before you 
go to sleep to-night, resolve that, God helping you, you 
are going to seek first the Kingdom of God. Perhaps 
some boys here are deserters; they began once before 
to serve Christ, and they deserted. Come back again, 
come back again today! Others have never enlisted 
at all. Will you not do it now? You are old enough to 
decide. The grandest moment of a boy's life is that 
moment when he decides to "Seek first the Kingdom of 
God." 



THE CHANGED LIFE: 

THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 

God is all for quality; man is for quantity. The im- 
mediate need of the world at this moment is not more 
of us, but, if I may use the expression, a better brand 
of us. To secure ten men of an improved type would 
be better than if we had ten thousand more of the av- 
erage Christians distributed all over the world. There 
is such a thing in the evangelistic sense as winning the 
whole world and losing our own soul. And the first 
consideration is our own life---our own spiritual rela- 
tions to God — our own likeness to Christ. And I am 
anxious, briefly, to look at the right and the wrong 
way of becoming like Christ — of becoming better men: 
the right and the wrong way of sanctification. 

Let me begin by naming, and in part discarding, 
some processes in vogue already for producing better 
Hvts. These processes are far from wrong; in their 
place they may even be essential. One ventures to 
disparage them only because they do not turn out the 
most perfect possible work. 

I. The first imperfect method is to rely on 

RESOLUTION. 

In will power, in mere spasms of earnestness, there is 
no salvation. Struggle, effort, even agony, have their 
place in Christianity, as we shall see; but this is not 
where they come in. 

82 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 83 

In mid- Atlantic the Etruria, in which I was sailing, 
suddenly stopped. Something had gone wrong with 
the engines. There were five hundred able-bodied men 
on board the ship. Do you think that if we had 
gathered together and pushed against the mast we 
could have pushed it on ? 

When one attempts to sanctify himself by effort, he 
is trying to make his boat go by pushing against the 
mast. He is like a drowning man trying to lift himself 
out of the water by pulling at the hair of his own head. 

Christ held up this method almost to ridicule when 
He said, " Which of you by taking thought can add a 
cubit to his stature ?" Put down that method forever 
as being futile. 

The one redeeming feature of the self-sufficient 
method is this — that those who try it find out almost 
at once that it will not gain the goal. 

2. Another experimenter says : " But that is not my 
method. I have seen the folly of a mere wild struggle 
in the dark. I work on a principle. My plan is not to 
waste power on random effort, but to concentrate on a 
single sin. By taking 

ONE AT A TIME 

and crucifying it steadily, I hope in the end to extir- 
pate all." 

To this, unfortunate ly, there are four objections: For 
one thing, life is too short; thename of sin is legion. 
For another thing, to deal with individual sins is to 
leave the rest of the nature for the time untouched. In 
the third place, a single combat with a special sin does 
not affect the root and spring of the disease. If you 
dam up a stream at one place, it will simply overflow 



84 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

higher up. If only one of the channels of sin be ob- 
structed, experience points to an almost certain over- 
flow through some other part of the nature. Partial 
conversion is almost always accompanied by such 
moral leakage, for the pent-up energies accumulate to 
the bursting point, and the last state of that soul may 
be worse than the first. In the last place, religion does 
not consist in negatives, in stopping this sin and stop- 
ping that. The perfect character can never be pro- 
duced with a pruning knife. 

3. But a third protests: "So be it. I make no at- 
tempt to stop sins one by one. My method is just the 
opposite. 

I COPY THE VIRTUES 

one by one." 

The difficulty about the copying method is that it is 
apt to be mechanical. One can always tell an engrav- 
ing from a picture, an artificial flower from a real 
flower. To copy virtues one by one has somewhat the 
same effect as eradicating the vices one by one; the 
temporary result is an overbalanced and incongruous 
character. Some one defines a prig as "a creature that 
is over-fed for its size." One sometimes finds Chris- 
tians of this species — over-fed on one side of their 
nature, but dismally thin and starved looking on the 
other. The result, for instance, of copying Humility, 
and adding it on to an otherwise worldly life, is simply 
grotesque. A rabid temperance advocate, for the same 
reason, is often the poorest of creatures, flourishing on 
a single virtue, and quite oblivious that his Temper- 
ance is making a worse man of him and not a better. 
These are examples of fine virtues spoiled by associa- 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 85 

tion with mean companions. Character is a unity, and 
all the virtues must advance together to make the per- 
fect man. 

This method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the 
true direction. It is only in the details of execution 
that it fails. 

4. A fourth method I need scarcely mention, for it 
is a variation on those already named. It is 

THE VERY YOUNG MAN'S METHOD; 

and the pure earnestness of it makes it almost dese- 
cration to touch it. It is to keep a private note-book 
with columns for the days of the week, and a list of 
virtues, with spaces against each for marks. This, with 
many stern rules for preface, is stored away in a secret 
place, and from time to time, at nightfall, the soul is 
arraigned before it as before a private judgment bar. 

This living by code was Franklin's method; and I 
suppose thousands more could tell how they had hung 
up in their bedrooms, or hid in locked fast drawers, the 
rules which one solemn day they drew up to shape their 
lives. 

This method is not erroneous, only somehow its suc- 
cess is poor. You bear me witness that it fails. And 
it fails generally for very matter-of-fact reasons — most 
likely because one day we forget the rules. 

All these methods that have been named — the self- 
sufficient method, the self-crucifixion method, the mi- 
metic method, and the diary method — are perfectly 
human, perfectly natural, perfectly ignorant, and as 
they stand perfectly inadequate. It is not argued, I 
repeat, that they must be abandoned. Their harm is 
rather that they distract attention from the true work- 



86 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

ing method, and secure a fair result at the expense of 
the perfect one. What that perfect method is we shall 
now go on to ask. 

I. THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFICATION. 

A formula, a receipt for Sanctification — can one ser- 
iously speak of this mighty change as if the process 
were as definite as for the production of so many volts 
of electricity? 

It is impossible to doubt it. Shall a mechanical ex- 
periment succeed infallibly, and the one vital experi- 
ment of humanity remain a chance? Is corn to grow 
by method, and character by caprice? If we cannot 
calculate to a certainty that the forces of religion will 
do their work, then is religion vain. And if we cannot 
express the law of these forces in simple words, then is 
Christianity not the world's religion, but the world's 
conundrum. , 

Where, then, shall one look for such a formula? 
Where one would look for any formula — among the 
text-books. And if we turn to the text-books of Chris- 
tianity we shall find a formula for this problem as clear 
and precise as any in the mechanical sciences. If this 
simple rule, moreover, be but followed fearlessly, it 
will yield the result of a perfect character as surely as 
any result that is guaranteed by the laws of nature. 

The finest expression of this rule in Scripture, or in- 
deed in any literature, is probably one drawn up and 
condensed into a single verse by Paul. You will find it 
in a letter — the second to the Corinthians — written by 
him to some Christian people who, in a city which was 
a byword for depravity and licentiousness, were seek- 
ing the higher life. To see the point of the words we 



THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 87 

must take them from the immensely improved render- 
ing of the Revised translation, for the older Version in 
this case greatly obscures the sense. They are these: 

"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the 
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit." 

Now observe at the outset the entire contradiction of 
all our previous efforts, in the simple passive: "We are 
transformed." 

We are changed, as the Old Version has it — we do not 
change ourselves. No man can change himself. 
Throughout the New Testament you will find that 
wherever these moral and spiritual transformations are 
described the verbs are in the passive. Presently it 
will be pointed out that there is a rationale in this; but 
meantime do not toss these words aside as if this pas- 
sivity denied all human effort or ignored intelligible 
law. What is implied for the soul here is no more 
than is everywhere claimed for the body. In physiology 
the verbs describing the processes of growth are in 
the passive. Growth is not voluntary; it takes place, 
it happens, it is wrought upon matter. So here. "Ye 
must be born again" — we cannot born ourselves. "Be 
not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed" — 
we are subjects to transforming influence, we do not 
transform ourselves. Not more certain is it that it is 
something outside the thermometer that produces a 
change in the thermometer, than it is 

SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE SOUL OF MAN 

that produces a moral change upon him. That he must 
be susceptible to that change, that he must be a party 
to it, goes without saying; but that neither his aptitude 
nor his will can produce it, is equally certain. 



88 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

Obvious as it ought to seem, this may be to some an 
almost startling revelation. The change we have been 
striving after is not to be produced by any more striv- 
ing. It is to be wrought upon us by the moulding of 
hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the 
bud bursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-opera- 
tion of influences from the outside air, so man rises to 
the higher stature under invisible pressures from with- 
out. The radical defect of all our former methods of 
sanctification was the attempt to generate from within 
that "which can only be wrought upon us from without. 
According to the first Law of Motion, every body con- 
tinues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a 
straight line, except in so far as it may be compelled 
by impressed forces to change that state. This is also a 
first law of Christianity. Every man's' character re- 
mains as it is, or continues in the- direction in which it 
is going, until it is compelled by impressed forces to 
change that state. Our failure has been the failure to 
put ourselves in the way of the impressed forces. There 
is a clay, and there is a Potter; we have tried to get 
the clay to mould the clay. 

Whence, then, these pressures, and where this Pot- 
ter? The answer of the formula is — "By reflecting as a 
mirror the glory of the Lord we are changed." But 
this is not very clear. What is the "glory" of the 
Lord, and how can mortal man reflect it, and how can 
that act as an "impressed force" in moulding him to 
a nobler form? The word "glory" — the word which 
has to bear the weight of holding those "impressed, 
forces"— is a stranger in current speech, and our first 
duty is to seek out its equivalent in working English. 
It suggests at first a radiance of some kind, something 



THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 89 



dazzling or glittering, some halo such as the old mas- 
ters loved to paint round the head of their Ecce 
Homos. But that is paint, mere matter, the visible 
symbol of some unseen thing. What is that unseen 
thing? It is that of all unseen things the most radiant, 
the most beautiful, the most Divine, and that is Char- 
acter. On earth, in Heaven, there is nothing so great, 
so glorious as this. The word has many meanings; in 
ethics it can have but one. Glory is character, and 
nothing less, and it can be nothing more. The earth is 
"full of the glory of the Lord," because it is full of His 
character. The "Beauty of the Lord" is character. 
"The effulgence of His Glory" is character. "The 
Glory of the Only Begotten" is character, the charac- 
ter which is "fullness of grace and truth." And when 
God told His people His name, He simply gave them 
His character, His character which was Himself: 
"And the Lord proclaimed the name of the Lord . . 
. . the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, 
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." 
Glory then is not something intangible, or ghostly, or 
transcendental. If it were this, how could Paul ask 
men to reflect it? Stripped of its physical enswathe- 
ment it is Beauty, moral and spiritual Beauty, Beauty 
infinitely real, infinitely exalted, yet infinitely near and 
infinitely communicable. 

With this explanation read over the sentence once 
more in paraphrase: We all reflecting as a mirror the 
character of Christ are transformed into the same 
Image from character to character — from a poor char- 
acter to a better one, from a better one to a little bet- 
ter still, from that to one still more complete, until by 
slow degrees the Perfect Image is attained. Here 






GO THE CHANGED LIFE: 

THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF SANCTIFICATION 

is compressed into a sentence: Reflect the character 
of Christ, and you will become like Christ. You will 
be changed, in spite of yourself and unknown to your- 
self, into the same image from character to character, 
(i). All men are reflectors — that is 

THE FIRST LAW 

on which this formula is based. One of the aptest de- 
scriptions of a human being is that he is a mirror. As 
we sat at table to-n ight the world in which each of us 
lived and moved throughout this day was focused in 
the room. What we saw when we looked at one an- 
other was not one another, but one another's world. 
We were an arrangement of mirrors. The scenes we 
saw were all reproduced; the people we met walked to 
and fro; they spoke, they bowed, they passed us by, 
did everything over again as if it had been real. When 
we talked, we were but looking at our own mirror and 
describing what flitted across it; our listening was not 
hearing, but seeing — we but looked on our neighbor's 
mirror. 

All human intercourse is a seeing of reflections. I 
meet a stranger in a railway carriage. The cadence of 
his first words tells me he is English and comes from 
Yorkshire. Without knowing it he has reflected his 
birthplace, his parents, and the long history of their 
race. Even physiologically he is a mirror. His sec- 
ond sentence records that he is a politician, and a faint 
inflection in the way he pronounces The Times reveals 
his party. In his next remarks I see reflected a whole 
world of experiences. The books he has read, the 
people he has met, the companions he keeps, the in- 






THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 91 

fiuences that have played upon him and made him the 
man he is — these are all registered there by a pen which 
lets nothing pass, and whose writing can 

NEVER BE BLOTTED OUT. 

What I am reading in him meantime he also is reading 
in me; and before the journey is over we could half 
write each other's lives. Whether we like it or not, 
we live in glass houses. The mind, the memory, the 
soul, is simply a vast chamber panelled with looking- 
glass. And upon this miraculous arrangement and 
endowment depends the capacity of mortal souls to 
"reflect the cha racter of the Lord." 

(2). But this is not all. If all these varied reflec- 
tions from our so-called secret life are patent to the 
world, how close the writing, complete the record 
within the soul itself! For the influences we meet are 
not simply held for a moment on the polished surface 
and thrown off again into space. Each is retained 
where first it fell, and stored up in the soul forever. 

THIS LAW OF ASSIMILATION 

is the second, and by far the most impressive truth 
which underlies the formula of sanctification — the 
truth that men are not only mirrors, but that these 
mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors of the fleet- 
ing things they see, transfer into their own inmost sub- 
stance, and hold in permanent preservation the things 
that they reflect. 

No one knows how the soul can hold these things. 
No oneknows how the miracle is done. No phenomenon 
in nature, no process in chemistry, no chapter in necro- 
mancy can ever help us to begin to understand this 
amazing operation. For, think of it, the past is not 



92 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

only focused there, in a man's soul, it is there. How 
could it be reflected from there if it were not there? 
All things that he has ever seen, known, felt, believed 
of the surrounding world are now within him, have 
become part of him, in part are him— he has been 
changed into their image. He may deny it, he may re- 
sent it, but they are there. They do not adhere to him, 
they are transfused through him. He cannot alter or rub 
them out. They are not in his memory, they are in him. 
His soul is as they have filled it, made it, left it. These 
things, these books, these events, these influences are 
his makers. In their hands are life and death, beauty 
and deformity. When once the image or likeness of 
any of these is fairly presented to the soul, no power 
on earth can hinder two things happening — it. must be 
absorbed into the soul and forever reflected back again 
from character. 

Upon these astounding yet perfectly obvious psycho- 
logical facts, Paul bases his doctrine of sanctification. 
He sees that character is a thing built up by slow de- 
grees, that it is hourly changing for better or for worse 
according to the images which flit across it. One step 
further and the whole length and breadth of the appli- 
cation of these ideas to the central problem of religion 
will stand before us, 

II. THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 

If events change men, much more persons. No man 
can meet another on the street without making some 
mark upon him. We say we exchange words when we 
meet; what we exchange is souls. And when intercourse 
is very close and very frequent, so complete is this ex- 
change that recognizable bits of the one soul begin to 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 93 

show in the other's nature, and the second is conscious 
of a similar and growing debt to the first. 

Now, we become like those whom we habitually 
reflect. I could prove from science that applies even 
to the physical framework of animals — that they are 
influenced and organically changed by the environment 
in which they live. 

This mysterious approximating of two souls, who 
has not witnessed? Who has not watched some old 
couple come down life's pilgrimage hand in hand, with 
such gentle trust and joy in one another that their very 
faces wore the self-same look? These were not two 
souls; it was a composite soul. It did not matter to 
which of the two you spoke, you would have said the 
same words to either. It was quite indifferent which 
replied, each would have said the same. Half a cen- 
tury's reflecting had told upon them; they were changed 
into the same image. It is the Law of Influence that we 
become like those whom we habitually reflect: these had 
become like because they habitually reflected. Through 
all the range of literature, of history, and biography 
this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other men. 
There was a savor of David about Jonathan, and a 
savor of Jonathan about David. Metempsychosis is a 
fact. George Eliot's message to the world was that 
men and women make men and women. The Family, 
the cradle of mankind, has no meaning apart from 
this. Society itself is nothing but a rallying point for 
these omnipotent forces to do their work. On the 
doctrine of Influence, in short, the whole vast pyramid 
of humanity is built. 

But it was reserved for Paul to make the supreme 
application of the Law of Influence. It was a tremen- 



94 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

dous inference to make, but he never hesitated. He 
himself was a changed man; he knew exactly what had 
done it; 

IT WAS CHRIST. 

On the Damascus road they met, and from that hour 
his life was absorbed in His. The effect could not but 
follow — on words, on deeds, on career, on creed. The 
"impressed forces" did their vital work. He became 
like Him Whom he habitually loved. "So we all," he 
writes, "reflecting as a mirror the glory of Christ, are 
changed into the same image." 

Nothing could be more simple, more intelligible, 
more natural, more supernatural. It is an analogy 
from an every-day fact. Since we are what we are by 
the impacts of those who surround us, those who sur- 
round themselves with the highest will be those who 
change into the highest. There are some men and 
some women in whose company we are 

ALWAYS AT OUR BEST. 

While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or 
speak ungenerous words. Their mere presence is ele- 
vation, purification, sanctity. """ Al'rOie Tbest stops In our "~ 
nature are drawn out by their intercourse, and we find 
a music in our souls that was never there before. Sup- 
pose even that influence prolonged through a month, a 
year, a lifetime, and what could not life become? 
Here, even on the common plane of life, talking our 
language, walking our streets, working side by side, 
are sanctifiers of souls; here, breathing through com- 
mon clay, is Heaven; here, energies charged even 
through ? temporal medium with the virtue of regener- 
ation. If to live with men, diluted to the millionth de^ 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 95 

gree with the virtue of the Highest, can exalt and 
purify the nature, what bounds can be set to the influ- 
ence of Christ? To live with Socrates — with unveiled 
face — must have made one wise; with Aristides, just. 
Francis Assisi must have made one gentle; Savonarola, 
strong. But to have lived with Christ must have made 
one like Christ: that is to say, A Christian. 

As a matter of fact, to live with Christ did produce 
this effect. It produced it in the case of Paul. And 
during Christ's lifetime the experiment was tried in an 
even more startling form. A few raw, unspiritual, un- 
inspiring men, were admitted to the inner circle of His 
friendship. The change began at once. Day by day 
we can almost see the first disciple, grow. First there 
steals over them the faintest possible adumbration of 
His character, and occasionally, very occasionally, they 
do a thing or say a thing that they could not have done 
or said h ad they not been living there. Slowly the 
spell of His Life deepens. Reach after reach of their 
nature is overtaken, thawed, subjugated, sanctified. 
Their manner softens, their words become more gentle, 
their conduct more unselfish. As swallows who have 
found a summer, as frozen buds the spring, their 
starved humanity bursts into a fuller life. They do 
not know how it is, but they are different men. 

One day they find themselves like their Master, go- 
ing about and doing good. To themselves it is unac- 
countable, but they cannot do otherwise. They were 
not told to do it, it came to them to do it. But the 
people who watch them know well how to account for 
it — "They have been," they whisper, "with Jesus." 
Already even, the mark and seal of His character is 
upon them — "They have been with Jesus." Unparal- 



96 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

leled phenomenon, that these poor fishermen should 
remind other men of Christ! Stupendous victory and 
mystery of 

REGENERATION 

that mortal men should suggest God to the world! 

There is something almost melting in the way His 
contemporaries, and John especially, speak of the in- 
fluence of Christ. John lived himself in daily wonder 
at Him; he was overpowered, over-awed, entranced, 
transfigured. To his mind it was impossible for any 
one to come under this influence and ever be the same 
again. "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not," he 
said. It was inconceivable that he should sin, as in- 
conceivable as that ice should live in a burning sun, or 
darkness coexist with noon. If any one did sin, it was 
to John the simple proof that he could never have met 
Christ. "Whosoever sinneth," he exclaims, "hath not 
seen Him, neither kno wn Him." Sin was abashed in this 
Presence. Its roots withered. Its sway and victory 
were forever at an end. 

But these were His contemporaries. It was easy for 
them to be influenced by Him, for they were every day 
and all the day together. But how can we mirror that 
which we have never seen ? How can all this stupen- 
dous result be produced by a Memory, by the scantiest 
of all Biographies, by One who lived and left this earth 
eighteen hundred years ago ? How can modern men 
to-day make Christ, the absent Christ, their most con- 
stant companion still ? 

The answer is that 

FRIENDSHIP IS A SPIRITUAL THING. 

It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That 






THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 97 

which I love in my friend is not that which I see. 
What influences me in my friend is not his body but 
his spirit. He influences me about as much in his ab- 
sence as in his presence. It would have been an inef- 
fable experience truly to have lived at that time — 

"I think when I read the sweet story of old, 

How when Jesus was here among men, 
He took little children like lambs to His fold, 

I should like to have been with Him then. 

" I wish that His hand had been laid on my head, 
That His arms had been thrown around me, 

And that I had seen His kind look when he said, 
'Let the little ones come unto me.' " 

And yet, if Christ were to come into the world again, 
few of us probably would ever have a chance of seeing 
Him. Millions of her subjects in the little country of 
England have never seen their own Queen. And there 
would be millions of the subjects of Christ who could 
never get within speaking distance of Him if He were 
here. We remember He said: "It is expedient for 
you (not for Me) that I go away"; because by going 
away He could really be nearer to us than He would 
have been if He had stayed here. It would be geo- 
graphically and physically impossible for most of us 
to be influenced by His person had He remained. And 
so our communion with Him is a spiritual companion- 
ship; but not different from most companionships, 
which, when you press them down to the roots, you 
will find to be essentially spiritual. 

All friendship, all love, human and Divine, is purely 
spiritual. It was after He was risen that He influenced 
even the disciples most. Hence, in reflecting the char- 



98 THE CHANGED LIFE , 



acter of Christ, it is no real obstacle that we may never 
have been in visible contact with Himself. 

There lived once a young girl whose perfect grace of 
character was the wonder of those who knew her. She 
wore on her neck a gold locket which no one was ever 
allowed to open. One day, in a moment of unusual 
confidence, one of her companions was allowed to 
touch its spring and learn its secret. She saw written 
these words — 

" Whom having not seen Hove!' 

That was the secret of her beautiful life. She had 
been changed into the Same Image. 

Now this is not imitation, but a much deeper thing. 
Mark this distinction, for the difference in the process, 
as well as in the result, may be as great as that between 
a photograph ^secured by the infallible pencil of the 
sun, and the rude outline from a school-boy's chalk. 
Imitation is mechanical, reflection organic. The one is 
occasional, the other habitual. In the one case, man 
comes to God and imitates him; in the other, God 
comes to man and imprints Hims elf upon him. It is 
quite true that there is an imitation of Christ which 
amounts to reflection. Bat Paul's term includes all 
that the other holds, and is open to no mistake. 

What, then, is the practical lesson? It is obvious. 
"Make Christ your most constant companion" — this is 
what it practically means for us. Be more under His 
influence than under any other influence. Ten minutes 
spent in His society every day, ay, two minutes if it be 
face to face, and heart to heart, will make the whole 
day different. Every character has an inward spring, 
— let Christ be it. Every action has a key-note, — let 
Christ set it. 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 99 

Yesterday you got a certain letter. You sat down 
and wrote a reply which almost scorched the paper. 
You picked the cruelest adjectives you knew and sent 
it forth, without a pang to do its ruthless work. You 
did that because your life was set in the wrong key. 
You began the day with the mirror placed at the wrong 
angle. 

Tomorrow at day-break, turn it towards Him, and 
even to your enemy the fashion of your countenance 
will be changed. Whatever you then do, one thing you 
will find you could not do — you could not write that 
letter. Your first impulse may be the same, your judg- 
ment may be unchanged, but if you try it the ink will 
dry on your pen, and you will rise from your desk an 
unavenged, but a greater and more Christian man. 
Throughout the whole day your actions, down to the 
last detail, will do homage to that early vision. 

Yesterday you thought mostly about yourself. Today 
the poor will meet you, and you will feed them. The 
helpless, the tempted, the sad, will throng about you, 
and each you will befriend. Where were all these peo- 
ple yesterday? Where they are today, but you did not 
see them. It is in reflected light that the poor are seen. 
But your soul today is 

NOT AT THE ORDINARY ANGLE. 

"Things which are not seen" are visible. For a few 
short hours you live the Eternal Life. The eternal life, 
the life of faith, is simply the life of a higher vision. 
Faith is an attitude — a mirror set at the right angle. 

When tomorrow is over, and in the evening you re- 
view it, you will wonder how you did it. You will not 
be conscious that you strove for anything, or imitated 



106 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

anything, or crucified anything. You will be conscious 
of Christ; that He was with you, that without compul- 
sion you were yet compelled; that without force, or 
noise, or proclamation, the revolution was accomplished. 
You do not congratulate yourself as one who has done 
a mighty deed, or achieved a personal success, or stored 
up a fund of "Christian experience" to ensure the same 
result again. What you are conscious of is "the glory 
of the Lord." And what the world is conscious of, if 
the result be a true one, is also "the glory of the Lord." 
In looking at a mirror one does not see the mirror, or 
think of it, but only of what it reflects. For a mirror 
never calls the attention to itself — except when there 
are flaws in it. 

Let me say a word or two more about the effects 
which necessarily must follow from this contact, or 
fellowship, with Christ. I need not quote the texts 
upon the subject — the texts about abiding in Christ. 
"He that abideth in Him sinneth not." You cannot 
sin when you are standing in front of Christ. You 
simply cannot do it. Again: "If ye abide in Me, and 
My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and 
it shall be done unto you." Think of that! That is 
another inevitable consequence. And there is yet an- 
other: "He that abideth in Me, the same bringeth 
forth much fruit." Sinlessness — answered prayer — 
much fruit. 

But in addition to these things, see how many of the 
highest Christian virtues and experiences necessarily 
flow from the assumption of that attitude toward 
Christ. For instance, the moment you assume that 
relation to Christ you begin to know what the child- 
spirit is. You stand before Christ, and He becomes 



THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 101 

your Teacher, and you instinctively become docile. 
Then you learn also to become charitable and tolerant ; 
because you are learning of Him, and He is "meek 
and lowly in heart," and you catch that spirit. That is 
a bit of His character being reflected into yours. In- 
stead of being critical and self-asserting, you become 
humble and have the mind of a little child. 

I think, further, the only way of learning what faith- 
is is to know Christ and be in His company. You hear 
sermons about the nine different kinds of faith — dis- 
tinctions drawn between the right kind of faith and 
the wrong — and sermons telling you how to get faith 
So far as I can see, there is 

ONLY ONE WAY 

in which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious 
world as it is in the world of men and women. I learn 
to trust you, my brother, just as I get to know you, 
and neither more nor less; and you get to trust me just 
as you get to know me. I do not trust you as a 
stranger, but as I come into contact with you, and 
watch you, and live with you, I find out that you are 
trustworthy, and I come to trust myself to you, and 
to lean upon you. But I do not do that to a stranger. 
The way to trust Christ is to know Christ. You can- 
not help trusting Him then. You are changed. By 
knowing Him faith is begotten in you, as cause and 
effect. To trust Him without knowing Him as thou- 
sands do, is not faith, but credulity. I believe a great 
deal of prayer for faith is thrown away. What we 
should pray for is that we may be able to fulfill the 
condition, and when we have fulfilled the condition, 
the faith necessarily follows. The way, therefore, to 



102 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

increase our faith is to increase our intimacy with 
Christ. We trust Him more and more the better we 
know Him. 

And then another immediate effect of this way of 
sanctifying the character is the tranquillity that it 
brings over the Christian life. How disturbed and dis- 
tressed and anxious Christian people are about their 
growth in grace! Now, the moment you give that 
over into Christ's care — the moment you see that you 
are being changed — that anxiety passes away. You 
see that it must follow by an inevitable process and by 
a natural law if you fulfill the simple condition; so that 
peace is the reward of that life an d fellowship with 
Christ. 

Many other things follow. A man's usefulness 
depends to a large extent upon his fellowship with 
Christ. That is obvious. Only Christ can influence 
the world; but all that the world sees of Christ is what 
it sees of you and me. Christ said: "The world seeth 
Me no more, but ye see Me." You se e Him, and standing 
in front of Him reflect Him, and the world sees the 
reflection. It cannot see Him. So that a Christian's 
usefulness depends solely upon that relationship. 

Now, I have only pointed out a few of the things 
that follow from the standing before Christ — from 
the abiding in Christ. You will fin d, if you run over the 
texts about abiding in Christ, many other things will 
suggest themselves in the same relations. Almost 
everything in Christian experience and character fol- 
lows, and follows necessarily, from standing before 
Christ and reflecting his character. But the supreme 
consummation is that we are ch anged into the same 
image, "even as by the Lord the Spirit." That is to say, 



THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 103 

that in some way, unknown to us, but possibly not 
more mysterious than the doctrine of personal influ- 
ence, we are changed into the image of Christ. 

This method cannot fail. I am not setting before 
you an opinion or a theory, but this is 

A CERTAINLY SUCCESSFUL MEANS 

of sanctification. "We all, with unveiled face, reflecting 
in a mirror the glory of Christ (the character of Christ) 
assuredly — without an y miscarriage — without any pos- 
sibility of miscarriage — are changed into the same 
image." It is an immense thing to be anchored in some 
great principle like that. Emerson says: "The hero is 
the man who is immovably centered." Get immovably 
centered in that doctrine of sanctification. Do not be 
carried away by t he hundred and one theories of sanc- 
tification that are floating about in religious literature of 
the country at the present time; but goto the bottom of 
the thing for yourself, and see the rationale of it for 
yourself, and you w ill come to see that it is a matter of 
cause and effect, and that if you will fulfill the condi- 
tion laid down by C hrist, the effect must follow by a 
natural law. 

What a prospect! To be changed into the same 
image. Think of that! That is what we are here for. 
That is what we are elected for. Not to be saved, in 
the common acce ptation, but "whom He did foreknow 
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image 
of His Son." Not merely to be saved, but to be conformed 
to the image of His Son. Conserve that principle. And 
as we must spend time in cultivating our earthly friend- 
ships if we are to have their blessings, so we must 



104 THE CHANGED LIFE. 



SPEND TIME 

in cultivating the fellowship and companionship of 
Christ. And there is nothing so much worth taking 
into our lives as a profounder sense of what is to be 
had by living in communion with Christ, and by getting 
nearer to Him. It will matter much if we take away 
with us some of the thoughts about theology, and some 
of the new light that has been shed upon the text of 
Scripture; it will matter infinitely more if our fellow- 
ship with the Lord Jesus become a little closer, and 
our theory of holy living a little more rational. And 
then as we go forth, men will take knowledge of us, 
that we have been with Jesus, and as we reflect Him 
upon them, they will begin to be changed into the same 
image. 

It seems to me the preaching is of infinitely smaller 
account than the life which mirrors Christ. That is 
bound to tell; without speech or language — like the 
voices of the stars. It throws out its impressions on 
every side. The one simple thing we have to do is to be 
there — in the right relation; to go through life hand in 
hand with Him; to have Him in the room with us, and 
keeping us company wherever we go; to depend upon 
Him and lean upon Him, and so have His life reflected 
in the fullness of its beauty and perfection into ours. 

III. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. 

Then you reduce religion to a common Friendship? 
A common Friendship — who talks of a commo?i Friend- 
ship? There is no such thing in the world. 

On earth no word is more sublime. Friendship is \ 
he nearest thing we know to what religion is, God is 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 105 

love. And to make religion akin to Friendship is 
simply to give it the highest expression conceivable by 
man. But if by demurring to "a common friendship" is 
meant a protest against the greatest and the holiest in 
religion being spoken of in intelligible terms, then I 
am afraid the objection is all too real. Men always 
look for a mystery when one talks of sanctification, 
some mystery apart from that which must ever be mys- 
terious wherever Spirit works. It is thought some 
peculiar secret lies behind it, some occult experience 
which only the initiated know. Thousands of persons 
go to church every Sunday hoping to solve this mys- 
tery. At meetings, at conferences, many a time they 
have reached what they thought was the very brink of 
it, but somehow no further revelation came. - Poring 
over religious books, how often were they not within a 
paragraph of it; the next page, the next sentence, 
would discover all, and they would be borne on a flow- 
ing tide forever. But nothing happened. The next 
sentence and the next page were read, and still it 
eluded them; and though the promise of its coming 
kept faithfully up to the end, the last chapter found 
them still pursuing. 

Why did nothing happen? Because there was noth- 
ing to happen — nothing of the kind they were looking 
for. Why did it elude them? Because there was no 
"it." When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness 
is simply 

THE PURSUIT OF CHRIST? 

When shall we substitute for the "it" of a fictitious as- 
piration, the approach to a Living Friend? Sanctity 
is in character and not in moods; Divinity in our own 



106 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

plain calm humanity, and in no mystic rapture of the 
soul. 

And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary 
reason, will find scant satisfaction here. Their com- 
plaint is not that a religion expressed in terms of 
Friendship is too homely, but that it is still too mystical. 
To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ our most con- 
stant companion," is to them the purest mysticism. 
They want something absolutely tangible and abso- 
lutely direct. These are not the poetical souls who 
seek a sign, a mysticism in excess, but the prosaic 
natures whose want is mathematical definition in de- 
tails. Yet it is perhaps not possible to reduce this 
problem to much more rigid elements. The beauty of 
Friendship is its infinity. One can never evacuate life 
of mysticism. Home is full of it, love is full of it, re- 
ligion is full of it. Why stumble at that in the relation 
of man to Christ which is natural in the relation of man 
to man? 

If any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical rela- 
tion with Christ, perhaps all that can be done is to help 
him to step on to it by still plainer analogies from 
common life. How do I know Shakspere or Dante? 
By communing with their words and thoughts. Many 
men know Dante better than their own fathers. He 
influences them more. As a spiritual presence he is 
more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Is 
there any reason why a greater than Shakspere or 
Dante, who also walked this earth, who left great words 
behind Him, who has greater works everywhere in the 
world now, should not also instruct, inspire and mould 
the characters of men? I do not limit Christ's influ- 
ence to this: it is this, and it is more. But Christ, so 



THE GREA TEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 107 

far from resenting or discouraging this relation of 
Friendship, Himself proposed it. "Abide in me" was 
almost His last word to the world. And He partly 
met the difficulty of those who feel its intangibleness 
by adding the practical clause, "If ye abide in Me, and 
My words abide in you!' 

Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be 
long impersonal. Christ himself was a Word, a word 
made Flesh. Make His words flesh; do them, live 
them, and you must live Christ. "He that keepeth My 
Commandments, he it is that loveth Me." Obey Him 
and you must love Him. Abide in Him, and you must 
obey Him. Cultivate His Friendship. Live after 
Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence, and it is diffi- 
cult to think what more you can do. Take this at least 
as a first lesson, as introduction. 

If you cannot at once and always feel the play of 
His life upon yours, watch for it also indirectly. "The 
whole earth is full of the character of the Lord." 
Christ is the Light of the world, and much of his Light 
is reflected from things in the world — even from 
clouds. Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf 
through coal, and it comforts us thence when days are 
dark and we cannot see the sun. Christ shines through 
men, through books, through history, through nature, 
music, art. Look for Him there. "Every day one 
should either look at a beautiful picture, or hear beau- 
tiful music, or read a beautiful poem." The real dan- 
ger of mysticism is not making it broad enough. 

Do not think that nothing is happening because you 
do not see yourself grow, or hear the whir of the ma- 
chinery. All great things grow noiselessly. You can 
see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul said for 



108 THE CHANGED LIFE: 



the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they 
grew "from character to character." "The inward 
man," he says elsewhere, "is renewed from day to day." 
All thorough work is slow; all true development by 
minute, slight and insensible metamorphoses. The 
higher the structure, moreover, the slower the pro- 
gress. As the biologist runs his eye over the long As- 
cent of Life, he sees the lowest forms of animals develop 
in an hour; the next above these reach maturity in a 
day; those higher still take weeks or months to perfect; 
but the few at the top demand the long experiment of 
years. If a child and an ape are born on the same day, 
the last will be in full possession of its faculties and do- 
ing the active work of life before the child has left its 
cradle. Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is 
to the animal in the slowness of his evolution, so is the 
spiritual man to the natural man. Foundations which 
have to bear the weight of an eternal life must be surely 
laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder oiy 
grudge that it cannot be developed in a day? 

To aw r ait the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an 
almost Divine act of faith. How pardonable, surely, 
the impatience of deformity with itself, of a consciously 
despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, 
yearning, hungering to be like that ! Yet must one 
trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. 
"The Lord the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting 
expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to 
try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by 
watching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the 
Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only 
while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking 
to see how it is getting on he simply stops the getting 



THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 109 

on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may need, 
it is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being 
exposed, anything else in the world can improve the 
result or quicken it. The creation of a new heart, the 
renewing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent work of 
God. Leave it to the Creator. "He which hath be- 
gun a good work in you will perfect it unto that day." 
No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and so- 
lemnity of what is at stake will be careless as to his 
progress. To become 

LIKE CHRIST 

is the only thing in the world worth caring^ for, the 
thing before which every ambition of man is folly, and 
all lower achievement vain. 

Those only who make this quest the supreme desire 
and passion of their lives can ever begin to hope to 
reach it. If, therefore, it has seemed up to this point 
as if all depended on passivity, let me now assert, with 
conviction more intense, that all depends on activity. 
A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for 
an angel, but never for a man. Not in the contempla- 
tive, but in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, 
but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm of ideals, 
but among tangible things, is man's sanctification 
wrought. Resolution, effort, pain, self-crucifixion, 
agony — all the things already dismissed as futile in 
themselves, must now be restored to office, and a tenfold 
responsibility laid upon them. For what is their office ? 
Nothing less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, 
and place it, and keep it where the spiritual forces will 
act upon it. It is to rally the forces of the will, and 
keep the surface of the mirror bright and ever in posi- 



110 THE CHANGED LIFE 



tion. It is to uncover the face which is to look at 
Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights 
are near. 

You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch 
him photograph the spectrum of a star. As you enter 
the dark vault of the observatory you saw him begin by 
lighting a candle. To see the star with? No; but to 
adjust the instrument to see the star with. It was the 
star that was going to take the photograph; it was, also, 
the astronomer. For a long time he worked in the 
dimness, screwing tubes and polishing lenses and ad- 
justing reflectors, and only after much labor the finely 
focused instrument was brought to bear. Then he 
blew out the light, and left the star to do its work upon 
the plate alone. 

The day's task for the Christian is to bring his instru- 
ment to bear. Having done that he may blow out his 
candle All the evidences of Christianity which have 
brought him there, all aids to Faith, all acts of worship, 
all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer and Medita- 
tion, all girding of the Will — these lesser processes, 
these candle-light activities for that supreme hour, may 
be set aside. But, remember, it is but for an hour. 
The wise man will be he who quickest lights his candle; 
the wisest he who never lets it out. Tomorrow, the 
next moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may 
need it again to focus the Image better, to take a mote 
off the lens, to clear the mirror from a breath with 
which the world has dulled it. 

No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the 
Star. That is one great fixed point in this shifting uni- 
verse. But the world moves. And each day, each hour, 
demands a further motion and readjustment for the 



THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. Ill 

soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by 
clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called the 
Will. Hence, while the soul in passivity reflects the 
Image of the Lord, the Will in intense activity holds 
the mirror in position lest the drifting motion of the 
world bear it beyond the line of vision. To "follow 
Christ" is largely to keep the soul in such position as 
will allow for the motion of the earth. And this calcu- 
lated counteracting of the movements of the world, 
this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mir- 
rored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly through 
cloud and earthquake, fire and sword, is the stupen- 
dous co-operating labor of the Will. It is all man's 
work. It is all Christ's work. In practice it is both; 
in theory it is both. But the wise man will say in prac- 
tice, "It depends upon myself." 

In the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands 
a famous statue. It was the last work of a great gen- 
ius, who, like many a genius, was very poor and lived 
in a garret, which served as a studio and sleeping-room 
alike. When the statue was all but finished, one mid- 
night a sudden frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay 
awake in the fireless room and thought of the still 
moist clay, thought how the water would freeze in the 
pores and destroy in an hour the dream of his life. So 
the old man rose from his couch and heaped the 
bed-clothes reverently round his work. In the morn- 
ing when the neighbors entered the room the sculptor 
was dead, but the statue was saved! 

The Image of Christ that is forming within us — that 
is life's one charge. Let every project stand aside for 
that. The spirit of God who brooded upon the waters 
thousands of years ago, is busy now creating men, 



112 THE CHANGED LIFE: 

within these commonplace lives of ours, in the image 
of God. "Till Christ be formed," no man's work is fin- 
ished, no religion crowned, no life has fulfilled its end. 
Is the infinite task begun? When, how, are we to be 
different? Time cannot change men. Death cannot 
change men. Christ can. Wherefore put on Christ. 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

There is a subject which I think workers amongst 
young men cannot afford to keep out of sight — I mean 
the subject of "Doubt." We are forced to face that 
subject. We have no choice. I would rather let it 
alone; but every day of my life I meet men who doubt, 
and I am quite sure that most Christian workers among 
men have innumerable interviews every year with men 
who raise skeptical difficulties about religion. 

Now it becomes a matter of great practical impor- 
tance that we should know how to deal wisely with 
these. Upon the whole, I think these are the best men 
in the country. I speak of my own country. I speak 
of the universities with which I am familiar, and I say 
that the men who are perplexed, — the men who come 
to you with serious and honest difficulties,— are the 
best men. They are men of intellectual honesty, and 
cannot allow themselves to be put to rest by words, or 
phrases, or traditions, or theologies, but who must get 
to the bottom of things for themselves. And if I am 
not mistaken, 

CHRIST WAS VERY FOND 

of these men. The outsiders always interested Him, 
and touched Him. The orthodox people — the Pharisees 
— He was much less interested in. He went with publi- 
cans and sinners — with people who were in revolt 
against the respectability, intellectual and religious, of 

113 



114 DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

the day. And following Him, we are entitled to give 
sympathetic consideration to those whom He loved 
and took trouble with. 

First, let me speak for a moment or two about 

THE ORIGIN OF DOUBT. 

In the first place, we are born questioners. Look at 
the wonderment of a little child in its eyes before it 
can speak. The child's great word when it begins to 
speak is, "Why?" Every child is full of every kind of 
question, about every kind of thing, that moves, and 
shines, and changes, in the little world in which it 
lives. 

That is the incipient doubt in the nature of man. 
Respect doubt for its origin. It is an inevitable thing. 
It is not a thing to be crushed. It is a part of man as 
God made him. Heresy is truth in the making, and 
doubt is the prelude of knowledge. 

Secondly: The world is a Sphinx. It is a vast riddle 
-—an unfathomable mystery; and on every side there 
is temptation to questioning. In every leaf, in every 
cell of every leaf, there are a hundred problems. There 
are ten good years of a man's life in investigating what 
is in a leaf, and there are five good years more in in- 
vestigating the things that are in the things that are in 
the leaf. God has planned the world to incite men to 
intellectual activity. 

Thirdly: The instrument with which we attempt to in- 
vestigate truth is impaired. Some say it fell, and the 
glass is broken. Some say prejudice, heredity, or sin, 
have spoiled its sight, and have blinded our eyes and 
deadened our ears. In any case the instruments witn 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 115 

which we work upon truth, even in the strongest men, 
are feeble and inadequate to their tremendous task. 

And in the fourth place, all religious truths are doubt- 
able. There is no absolute truth for any one of them. 
Even that fundamental truth — the existence of a God 
— no man can prove by reason. The ordinary proof 
for the existence of God involves either an assumption, 
argument in a circle, or a contradiction. The impres- 
sion of God is kept up by experience, not by logic. 
And hence, when the experimental religion of a man, 
of a community, or of a nation wanes, religion wanes — 
their idea of God grows indistinct, and that man, com- 
munity or nation becomes infidel. 

Bear in mind, then, that all religious truths are doubt- 
able — even those which we hold most strongly. 

What does this brief account of the origin of doubt 
teach us? It teaches us 

GREAT INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY. 

It teaches us sympathy and toleration with all men 
who venture upon the ocean of truth to find out a 
path through it for themselves. Do you sometimes 
feel yourself thinking unkind things about your fellow- 
students who have intellectual difficulty? I know how 
hard it is always to feel sympathy and toleration for 
them; but we must address ourselves to that most care- 
fully and most religiously. If my brother is short- 
sighted I must not abuse him or speak against him; 
I must pity him, and if possible try to improve his 
sight, or to make things that he is to look at so bright 
that he cannot help seeing. But never let us think 
evil of men who do not see as we do. From the bot- 
tom of our hearts let us pity them, and let us take them 



116 DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

by the hand and spend time and thought over them, 
and try to lead them to the true light. 
What has been 

THE CHURCH'S TREATMENT OF DOUBT 

in the past? It has been very simple. "There is a 
heretic. Burn him!" That is all. "There is a man 
who has gone off the road. Bring him back and tor- 
ture him!" 

We have got past that physically; have we got past 
it morally? What does the modern Church say to a 
man who is skeptical? Not " Burn him!" but " Brand 
him!" "Brand him!" — call him a bad name. And 
in many countries at the present time, a man who is 
branded as a heretic is despised, tabooed and put out 
of religious society, much more than if he had gone 
wrong in morals. I think I am speaking within the 
facts when I say that a man who is unsound is looked 
upon in many communities with more suspicion and 
with more pious horror than a man who now and then 
gets drumk. "Burn him!" "Brand him!" "Excom- 
municate him!" That has been the Church's treat- 
ment of doubt, and that is perhaps to some extent the 
treatment which we ourselves are inclined to give to 
the men who cannot see the truths of Christianity as 
we see them. 

Contrast 

Christ's treatment 

of doubt. I have spoken already of His strange parti- 
ality for the outsiders — for the scattered heretics up 
and down the country; of the care with which He 
loved to deal with them, and of the respect in which 
He held their intellectual difficulties, Christ never 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 117 

failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. 
Doubt is " can't believe" ; unbelief is "wont believe." 
Doubt is honesty: unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is 
looking for light; unbelief is content with darkness. 
Loving darkness rather than light — that is what Christ 
attacked, and attacked unsparingly. But for the intel- 
lectual questioning of Thomas, and Philip, and Nico- 
demus, and the many others who came to Him to have 
their great problems solved, He was respectful and 
generous and tolerant. 

And how did He meet their doubts? The Church, 
as I have said, says, "Brand him!" Christ said, 
11 Teach him." He destroyed by fulfilling. When 
Thomas came to Him and denied His very resurrec 
tion, and stood before Him waiting for the scathing 
words and lashing for his unbelief, they never came. 
They never came! Christ gave him facts — facts! No 
man can go around facts. Christ said, " Behold My 
hands and My feet." The great god of science at the 
present time is a fact. It works with facts. Its cry is, 
11 Give me facts. Found anything you like upon facts 
and we will believe it." The spirit of Christ was the 
scientific spirit. He founded His religion upon facts; 
and He asked all men to found their religion upon 
facts. 

Now, get up the facts of Christianity, and take men 
to the facts. Theologies — and I am not speaking dis- 
respectfully of theology; theology is as scientific a 
thing as any other science of facts — but theologies 
are 

HUMAN VERSIONS 

of Divine truths, and hence the varieties of the ver- 



118 DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

I sions and the inconsistences of them. I would allow a 
\ man to select whichever version of this truth he liked 
\ afterwards ; but I would ask him to begin with no ver- 
sion, but go back to the facts and base his Christian life 
upon these. 

That is the great lesson of the New Testament way 
of looking at doubt — of Christ's treatment of doubt. 
It is not "Brand him!" — but lovingly, wisely and ten- 
derly to teach him. Faith is never opposed to reason 
in the New Testament; it is opposed to sight. You will 
find that a principle worth thinking over. Faith is never 
opposed to reason in the New Testament, but to sight. 

With these principles in mind as to the origin of 
doubt, and as to Christ's treatment of it, how are we 
ourselves to deal with those who are in intellectual dif- 
ficulty? 

In the first place, I think we must make all the con- 
cessions to them that we co?iscientiously can. 

When a doubter first encounters you, he pours out a 
deluge of abuse of churches, and ministers, and creeds, 
and Christians. Nine-tenths of what he says is prob- 
ably true. Make concessions. Agree with him. It 
does him good to unburden himself of these things. 
He has been cherishing them for years — laying them 
up against Christians, against the Church, and against 
Christianity; and now he is startled to find the first 
Christian with whom he has talked over the thing almost 
entirely agrees with him. We are, of course, not re- 
sponsible for everything that is said in the name of 
Christianity; but a man does not give up medicine be- 
cause there are quack doctors, and no man has a right 
to give up his Christianity because there are spurious 
or inconsistent Christians. Then, as I already said, 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 121 

his life will be done before he has begun to settle them; 
and ask him what he is doing- with his life meantime. 
Charge him with wasting his life and his usefulness; 
and invite him to deal with the moral and practical 
difficulties of the world, and leave the intellectual diffi- 
culties as he goes along. To spend time upon these is 
proving the less important before the more important; 
and, as the French say, "The good is the enemy of the 
best." It is a good thing to think; it is a better thing 
to work — it is a better thing to do good. And you have 
him there, you see. He can't get beyond that. You 
have to tell him, in fact, that there are two organs of 
knowledge: the one reason, the other obedience. And 
now tell him, as he has tried the first and found the 
little in it, just for a moment or two to join you in try- 
ing the second. And when he asks whom he is to obey, 
you tell him there is but One, and lead him to the great 
historical figure who calls all men to Him: the one 
perfect life — the one Savior of mankind — the one Light 
of the world. Ask him to begin to 

OBEY CHRIST; 

and, doing His will, he shall know of the doctrine 
whether it be of God. 

That, I think, is about the only thing you can do 
with a man: to get him into practical contact with the 
needs of the World, and to let him lose his intellectual 
difficulties meantime. Don't ask him to give them up 
altogether. Tell him to solve them afterward one by 
one if he can, but meantime to give his life to Christ 
and his time to the kingdom of God. You fetch him 
completely around when you do that. You have taken 
him away from the false side of his nature, and to the 



122 DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

practical and moral side of his nature; and for the first 
time in his life, perhaps, he puts things in their true 
place. He puts his nature in the relations in which it 
ought to be, and he then only begins to live. And by 
obedience he will soon become a learner and pupil 
for himself, and Christ will teach him things, and he 
will find whatever problems are solvable gradually 
solved as he goes along the pith of practical duty. 

Now, let me, in closing, give an instance of how to 
deal with specific points. 

The question of miracles is thrown at my head every 
second day: 

"What do you say to a man when he says to you, 
'Why do you believe in miracles? " 

I say, "Because I have seen them." 

He asks, "When?" 

I say, "Yesterday." 

"Where?" 

"Down such-and-such a street I saw a man who was 
a drunkard redeemed by the power of an unseen Christ 
and saved from sin. That is a miracle." 

The best apologetic for Christianity is a Christian. 
That is a fact which the man cannot get over. There 
are fifty other arguments for miracles, but none so good 
as that you have seen them. Perhaps you are one 
yourself. But take a man and show him a miracle with 
his own eyes. Then he will believe. 



r)/2fc#T»/*l^t* ■^ or one dollar we w *^ send ten 
l\vClUCI copies of this book, or of any 
other of the series (assorted) to any address or 
addresses in the world. 

Ten good books for young men are: 
The Mirage of Life (No. 68), Moody's Anec- 
dotes (No. 66), Our Bible (No. 64), Weighed and 
Wanting (No. 60), Faith (No. 56), Possibilities 
(No. 55), Sowing and Reaping (No. 26), Light on 
Life's Duties (No. 15), Pleasure and Profit in 
Bible Study (No. 3), and Tha Way to God 
(No. 2). 

Remit by bank draft or money order, paya- 
ble, to 

A. P. tAYLORD. TRSAfeURM. 

Address letters to 

A. P. FITT. S»PT. 
The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 

250 La. Salle Avenue, Chicago. 



"THE WAY TO GOD' 



2>er Meg 31* (Sort 



un& 



tote er jti fmben iJL 

33on 

_ ♦ » ♦ — - — 

"HEAVEN" 

2>er IDtmmel 

bte §offmmg; feme Seiner; feme ©liitffeltgfett; 

fein Stetdjtlpim; feme SBclo^nung. 

W™ £. <£. l^ oobyo 

,,£errn ^coobn ift etne 23er[ammlung immer fitter, aber biefeS SBud^cS 
roegen cerbient er etne befouberS ^xt^t."— Presbyterian Witness. 



"SECRET POWER" 

tDerborgene IRraft 

ober 

2>a$ ©eljetmmjji be$ SrfoIgS im d)riftlicf)en 
Seben unb SBirlen. 

C?in griinblitf) ernfte§ unb be^iilfltdjeS 23utf) fur ben ©ebraud) ber 
Glfjrifien iiber bte 2Birfungen be§ fyetltgen @ei[te§ in ben ©laubtgen. (S3 
regt an ju nermefyvtem ©trebenunb jiir cotligeien ©eniifcung ber 93or= 
red)te ber ,,Jftinber ©otte§." 

(Bttjeltt 15 <£ettt£* gtoci futr 25 <£etttS* 

tHan fcnbe pofimarfcn an 
A. P. FITT t Sopt M The Bible Institute Colpor tage Association 
250La Salle Ave;, CHICAGO 




THe GoiDortage LiDraru 

Single numbers, 15 cents; two for 2S cents; ten for $1.00; all 

postpaid. F^ach number complete in itself, about 

125 pages. 

POPULAR BOOKS BY 

SPURGEON 

CHAPMAN 

TALMAGE 

MEYER and Others 



The Bible Institute Colpor tage Association 

CHICAGO 



PUBLISHERS 
250 LA SALLE AVENUE 



No. i~AH of Grace. By C. H. 

Spurgeon. An earnest word with those 
who are seeking salvation by the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 
"Every word rs weighted with precious 
truth, and truth so simply and convincing- 
ly put that none can fail to understand 
God : s way of salvation Powerful illustra- 
tions, apt and original similes, and the 
affectionate desire to win for Christ and to 
Christ, make it a gospel treasury of price- 
less worth."— The Christian. 

No. 2— The Way to God, and How 

to Find It. By D. L. Moody. Chap- 
ters to meet the special needs of differ- 
ent classes of inquirers, and for back- 
sliders. 
"Full of pathos, point and power. Can- 
not fiil to be the means of quickening and 
blessing wherever read."— The Methodist. 

No. 3- Pleasure and Profit in 

Bible Study. By D. L. Moody. 
"Here are sixteen chapters containing 
the very best things Mr. Moody lias ever 
said about the b^st of books. It is full of 
suggestions."— The Central Baptist. 

No. 4— Life, Warfare and Vic- 
tory. By D. W. Whittle. Life im- 
parted by God through faith in Jesus 
Christ; warfare with enemies, within 
and without; victory "through Him 
that loved us." 
"The author has written a book which 
will be found of immense service to those 
seeking after truth or who have just em- 
braced the Gosoel of Christ."— Baptist 
Messenger. 



No. 5 — Heaven: Where it is; Its 

inhabitants; How to get there. The 
certainty of God's promise of a life be- 
yond the grave, and the rewards that 
are in store for faithful service. By 
D. L. Moody. 
"Eminently scriptural; earnest and im- 
pressive; will be welcomed by thousands." 
— 'Lion's Herald. 

No. 6— Prevailing Prayer; What 

hinders it? By D. L. Moody. Chap- 
ters on Adoration, Confession, Resti- 
tution, Thanksgiving, Forgiveness, 
Unity, Faith, Petition, Submission- 
nine elements that are essential to true 
prayer. Additional chapters on the 
prayers of the Bible, and answered 
prayers. 
"It is most searching and powerful in its 
appeals to the conscience, and abounds in 
well-told incidents."— Z.<7y Preacher. 

No. 7 -The Way of Life, marked 

out by Spurgeon, Chapman, McNeill, 
Moody, Tal mage. 
"These discourses are eminently prac- 
tical, clear and Scriptural, andean scarcely 
fail to guide the honest inquirer in 'The 
Way of Life ' "—The PeninsulaMethodist. 

No. 8— Secret Power; or, The 

Secret of Success in Christian Life and 

Christian Work. By D. L. Moody. 

Power — its source; 'in' and 'upon'; in 

witnessing; in operation; hindered. 

"A deeply earnest and helpful book for 

the use of Christians, on the work of the 

Holy Spirit in the believer, inciting to 

more rlilisrent effort and to a more perfect 

use of the privileges of the 'sons of God.'" 



The Colporfage Library 



No. 9— To the Work! A trumpet 

call to Christians, by D. L. Moody. 
Chapters on Hindrances, the Motive 
Power for Service, Faith, Courage, En- 
thusiasm, etc. 
"The prayerful study of this volume can- 
not fail to prove helpful and inspiring to 
all Christian workers, and to all who are 
aspiring to be like Christ in their love for 
souls and zeal for their salvation. "—Pres- 
byterian. 

No. i o— According to Promise; 

or, The Lord's Method of dealing with 
His chosen people. By C. H. Spur- 
geon. A companion volume to "All 
of Grace." (No. i of the Colportage 
Library series.) 
"It is an eminently practical volume, the 
fruit of a ripe experience; as simple in its 
form as it is searching in its exposure of 
counterfeit religion; and we have no doubt 
that many will have reason to rejoice that 
they made its acquaintance. As Mr. Spur- 
geon remarks in one of his homely senten- 
ces, 'he who looked into his accounts and 
found that his business was a losing one 
was saved from bankruptcy.' "—Christian 
Leader. 

No. ii— Bible Characters. By 

D. L. Moody. Studies of the char- 
acters of Daniel, Enoch, Lot, Jacob 
and John the Baptist; showing the ways 
of God with different men, in different 
periods and under different circum- 
stances, always revealing the same wis- 
dom, love and power. 
"Mr. Moody goes right into the heart of 
his subject, and in a few words shows his 
reader the great truth or principle involved, 
teaching lessons for all time and all gene- 
rations. In his hands' the Bible is a living 
book."— Christian Age. 

No. 12— Gospel Pictures and 

Story Sermons for children. By D. 
W. Whittle. Major Whittle's object 
sermons for children, teaching by the 
eye as well as by the ear. The topics 
are— The Poison Sermon—The Magnet 
Sermon— The Candle Sermon— The 
Commandments Sermon (two parts)— 
The Heart Sermon. Profusely illus- 
trated. 
"Simple, attractive, instructive; and may 
prove suggestive to all pastors wishing to 
present, in a forceful way, important truths 
to young minds."— The Standard. 

No. 13— And Peter, and other ser- 
mons. By J. Wilbur Chapman. Con- 
taining eight of Dr. Chapman's most 
helpful sermons. 
"The style and matter are almost as at- 



tractive as the magnetic utterances of the 
author. All is direct, searching, forcible 
and readable.'— Brotherhood Star. 

No. 14— Select Poems. 

"Thirty-one gems of religious verse." — 
Northwestern Christian Advocate. 

"A selection in which rare discrimination 
and thorough knowledge of devotional 
verse are evinced."— Young Merf s Era. 

No. 15— Light on Life's Duties. 

By F. B. Meyer, with an introduction 
by J. Wilbur Chapman. Chapters en- 
titled: The Chambers of the King; 
The Lost Chord Found; The Secret of 
Victory over Sin; The First Step into 
the Blessed Life; With Christ in Separ- 
ation; How to Read Your Bible: The 
Common Task; Young Men, Don't 
Drift; Words of Help for Christian 
Girls; Seven Rules for Daily Living. 
"Full of good things, and suitable for 
distribution."— Christian Observer. 

No. 16— Point and Purpose in 

Story and Saying. 

"Full of pithy anecdote and illustration, 
of exceptional value to clergy and laymen." 
— Young Men 's Era. 

No. 17— Selections from Spur- 

geon. Giving characteristic selections 
from Mr. Spurgeon's sermons, reveal- 
ing the secret of his mighty power as a 
preacher. 
"Covers a wide variety of spiritual topics 

in the great preacher's inimitable way." — 

The Golden Rule. 

No. 18— The Good Shepherd, a 

life of our Saviour for children. Large 
print, profusely illustrated. 
Hundreds of thousands of copies of this 
book have been sold. 

No. 19— Good Tidings, by Tal- 

mage, Spurgeon, Parker, McNeill. 
"Behold, I bring you Good Tidings of 
great joy, which shall be to all people; 
for unto you is born this day— a Sa- 
vior." (Luke ii. 11, 12.) 
"Every page a bearer of good tidings to 
the mind and heart of the reader. A good 
book for the widest circulation."— The 
Evangelical. 

No. 20— Sovereign Grace, its* 

source, its nature, and its effects. By 

D. L. Moody. 
"Particularly useful as showing the part 
which the grace of God takes in the work 
of conversion and regeneration."— Preach- 
er's Analyst. 



The Colportage Library 



No. 21— Select Sermons. By D. 

L. Moody. Sermons entitled: "Where 

art thou?"; There is no difference; 

Good News; Christ seeking sinners; 

Sinners seeking Christ; "What think 

ye of Christ?"; Excuses (two parts.) 

"With the effect of these addresses, when 

spoken, the whole land is acquainted, and 

now that they are printed, they will tend 

to keep in force the impression they have 

already made."— Methodist. 

No. 22— Temperance. 

"A perfect magazine of anecdotes, ex- 
periences, facts and arguments, helpful 
alike to general reader or public speaker." 
— The Baptist Union. 

"The subject is wisely and attractively 
handled."— Herald and Presbyter. 

No. 23— Nobody Loves Me. A 

story by Mrs. O. F.Walton. {Illus- 
trated.) 
"A touching story of the way in which a 
hardened and loveless life was led into true 
light and love."— The Union Signal. 

No. 24— Resurrection. Sermons 

by MacLaren,Talmage,Liddon, Moody 
and Spurgeon. 

"A rich collection of argument, exhorta- 
tion, suggestion and application, centering 
upon the foundationdoctrine of ourChris- 
tianity."— The Evangelical. 

"The blessed hope of a glorious resur- 
rection is made doubly real and precious 
by the sermons of these men through 
whom God has so often spoken."— The 
Golden Rule. 

No. 25— Vagen till Gud. ("The 

Way to God." See No. 2.) Swedish. 

No. 26 — Sowing and Reaping. 

ByD. L. Moody. 

On the text — "Be not deceived; God is 
not mocked; for whatsoever a mansoweth, 
that shall he also reap." (Gal. vi. 7.) 

"An admirable specimen of the evangel- 
ist's practical, vigorous, pungent style."— 
The Congregationalist. 

No. 27— Himmelen. ("Heaven." 

See No. 5.) Swedish. 

No. 28— Probable Sons. A Story. 

(Illustrated.) 

"Among the brightest, most charming 
and irresistible of child creations in our 
recent literature."— The Independent. 

"I could wish this little story might have 
a million readers, as it has proved a means 
of grace to my own heart."— Thomas Spur- 
geon. 

No. 29 — Segervinnande Bon. 

("Prevailing Prayer." See No. 6.) 
Swedish. 



No. 30— Good News. By Robert 

Boyd. 
"It will perhaps lend interest to the read- 
ing of this book to know that D. L. Moody 
got his first definite ideas of gospel truths 
from its contents."— Extract from Preface. 

No. 31— Forborgad Kraft. ("Se- 
cret Power." See No. 8.) Swedish. 
No. 32— The Secret of Guidance. 

By F. B. Meyer. 

A companion volume to No. 14, "Light 
on Life'sDuties." Chapters entitled— "The 
Secret of Guidance"; "Where am I 
wrong?"; "The Secret of Christ's Indwell- 
ing"; "Fact! Faith! Feeling!"; "Why Sign 
the Pledge?"; "Burdens, and What To Do 
With Them"; "How to Bear Sorrow"; "In 
the Secret of His Presence"; "The Fulness 
of the Spirit." 

"These two books contain the essence of 
my teaching." — F. B. Meyer. 

No. 33— Utvalda Predikningar. 

("Select Sermons." See No. 21.) 
Swedish. 

No. 34— The Second Coming of 

Christ. Chapters by D. L. Moody, 
Bishop J. C. Ryle, George Muller, 
Major Whittle, C. H. Spurgeon and 
others. 
"Good fuel to feed the flame of that 
'blessed hope' in the breast of every be- 
liever."— The Evangelical. 

No. 35— Bibel Berattelser for 

Barn. By W. H. B. ("Bible Stories 
for Children.") Swedish. 

No. 36— Sunday Talks to the 

Young. By Josiah Mee. 
"This book embodies a happy thought. 
Thirty-one excellent short talks on most 
important themes." 

No. 37— Der Himmel. ("Hea- 
ven." See No. 5.) German. 
No. 38— Parables from Nature. 

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty. 
"A very interesting book, in which reli- 
gious truths are taught by various mem- 
bers of the inanimate world."— Cumber- 
land Presbyterian. 

No. 39— Verborgene Kraft. ("Se- 
cret Power." See No. 8.) German. 
No. 40— Kadesh=Barnea, or the 

Power of a Surrendered Life. By J. 
Wilbur Chapman. 
"Maps out the way of the life of full 
spiritual blessing."— S. S. Times. 

No. 41— Himmelen. ("Heaven." 

See No. 5.) Dan.-Norw. 



The Colportage Library 



No. 42— Whiter than Snow, and 

Little Dot. Stories. {Illustrated.) 
"These two stories will minister grace to 
the reader, and should be welcomed into 
Sunday schools and homes." 

No. 43— Seirende Bon. ("Pre- 
vailing Prayer." See No. 6.) Danish- 
Norwegian. 

No. 44 -The Overcoming Life, 

and other sermons. By D. L. Moody. 

Chiefly for Christians. 
Contents— The Overcoming- Life : Part 
I, the Christian's Warfare— Part II, Inter- 
nal Foes— Part III, External Foes. And 
other sermons as follows : "Results of True 
Repentance"; "True Wisdom"; "Come 
thou and all thy House into the Ark"; 
"Humility"; "Rest"; "Seven T wills' of 

"While Mr. Moody is a John the Baptist, 
calling men to repent, he is also a Peter, 
preaching new Pentecosts, and leading 
men to fuller consecration."— 5. S. Times. 

No. 45— Forborgen Kraft. ("Se- 
cret Power." See No. 8.) Dan.-Norw. 

No. 46— A Royal Exile, and other 
sermons. By T. DeWitt Talmage. 
"There are ten sermons here, full of the 

Gospel and calculated to do great good."— 

Herald and Presbyter. 

No. 47— Udvalgte Praedikener. 

("Select Sermons." See No. 21.) 
Danish-Norwegian. 

No. 48— The Prodigal. Chapters 

by Spurgeon, Aitken, and others. 
Founded on the parable of the Prodi- 

fal Son. 
hese addresses, by the eminent men 
named, are highly suggestive and instruc- 
tive."— The Religious Telescope. 

No . 49 _The Spirit=FiIled Life. 

By John MacNeil. 10,000 copies sold 
within a week of publication. 
"I wish to urge all, especially ministers 
of the gospel, to give this little book a 
prayerful reading. I feel confident it will 
bring them help and blessing. It will 
deepen the conviction of the great need 
and absolute duty of being filled with the 
Spirit. It will point out the hindrances 
and open up the wav. It will stir up faith 
and hope."— From Rev. Andrew Murray's 
Introduction. 

No. 50— Jessica. A story - in two 

parts— "Jessica's First Prayer" and 

^Jessica's Mother." By Hesba Stret- 

ton. {Illustraiad.) 

This work is a classic, and has already 

had a sale aggregating about two millions. 



No. 51 — A Castaway, and other 

Addresses, delivered by F. B. Meyer. 
"I .believe that what is here taught will 
give a glimpse into those deeper aspects of 
Christianity which are best adapted to 
nourish and quicken the inner life."— F. B. 
Meyer in the preface. 

No. 52— Heaven on Earth. By 

A. C. Dixon. 
"A collection of thirteen Sermon9, which 
magnify the dignity and privileges of the 
Christian's earthly life, and sing out many 
a note of help and cheer for the toiling 
child of God/'— Baptist Standard. 

No. 53_Select Northfield Ser- 
mons. By W. W. Moore, Webb- 
Peploe, McKenzie, Bonar, Gordon, 
Speer, Cuyler. etc. 
"One sermon, 'The Religion of Unspot- 

tedness,' is worth the price of the book."— 

jCJiristian Courier. 

No. 54— Absolute Surrender, by 

Andrew Murray. 
"To earnest Christian people seeking a 
more satisfactory experience and greater 
conformity to the voice and heart of Christ, 
this book will be as a guiding star of 
hope." — Christian Work. 

No. 55— Possibil ties. By J. G. 

K. McClure. 
"Unusually bright and pertinent dis- 
courses, full of the American quality of 
directness, go to make up this volume." — 
Sunday School Times. 

No. 56— Faith. Chapters by Spur- 
geon, Finlayson, Aitken, Maclaren and 
Moody. 

No. 57— Christie's Old Organ, by 

Mrs. O. F. Walton. A story. (Illust.) 
"A splendid book to leave in homes 
where tracts would be refused."— Church 
Calendar. 

No. 58— Naaman the Syrian, by 

A. B. Mackay. Introduction by D. L. 

Moody. , _ . 

The history of Naaman the Syrian, as 
recorded in 2 Kings, is the groundwork of 
this interesting and helpful book. 

No. 59— The Lost Crown, by J. 

Wilbur Chapman. 
"Calculated to stir Christians to a care- 
ful discharge of duty." • 

No. 60— Weighed and Wanting. 

Addresses on the Ten Commandments, 
bv D. L. Moody. . . 

"Especially notable for the best charac- 
teristics of the evangelist's style. His 
force and fire and power appear even 00 
the printed page."— Evangelical. 




President 



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COLPORTAGE LIBRARY 

Under the above title Tbe Bible Institute Colportage 
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Illustrations by Whymper. 

John Ploughman's Talk, by C. H. Spurgeon. Illustrated. 
Meet for the Master's Use, by F. B. Meyer. 
Our Bible; Where Did It Come From? By Charles Leach. 
Ten Reasons Why I Believe the Bible Is the Word of God, 
by R. A. Torrey. 

Alone in London, by Hesba Stretton. A story. It lus- 
trations by Whymper. 

Moody's Anecdotes. Only authorized collection. 
Addresses, by the late Henry Drummond, including 
"Love, the greatest thing in the World;" "The Perfected 
Life, the greatest need in the World;" "Pax Vobiscum;" 
"First," etc. Introduction by D. L. Moody. 
No. 68. The Mirage of Life. A book to warn against the allure- 
ments of the world. Illustrations by Tenniel. 
The Children of the Bible. 
The Power of Pentecost, by Thomas Waugh. 
Scripture Characters, by D. L. Moody. 
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No. 62, 
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No. 64. 



No. 65. 

No. 66. 
No. 67. 



No. 69. 
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No. 72. 



